Free Republic

If there were ever a time for the Philadelphia region to prove its mettle as a center for medical education, this is it. The impending closure of Hahnemann University Hospital is forcing about 570 residents who work at the Center City institution to find a new place to continue their training. Slated to close by early September, the hospital is already seeing a rapidly dwindling number of inpatients.

Nearly all 2020 Democratic presidential contenders are pushing some form of full-on socialized, government-controlled healthcare, most wrapped in a “Medicare-for-all” scheme the candidates say resembles “successful” similar programs in Europe. But what these candidates are not telling Americans — nor is the Democrat-aligned “mainstream media” — is that several Nordic countries with long histories of socialist-like healthcare are moving more towards private insurance models. This comes as top Democratic contenders like Sen. Bernie Sanders are threatening to do away with all private, mostly employer-based health insurance, which currently covers roughly 100 million Americans (who are mostly satisfied with their coverage,...

Sarah Palin, the first major GOP figure to endorse President Donald Trump, is calling out House Speaker Paul Ryan for what she says is “RINO-Care'...in her first interview on the topic, coming on Breitbart News Saturday on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel this weekend... “I do want to speak about this, but I am tempted to say not another word from our fearless leaders about this new form of Obamacare that I’m going to call RINO-care—not another word from them until we are definitively told that there is no provision whatsoever allowing Congress to exempt itself whatsoever with this law,”...

link only due to copywrite

One of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States says Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate to provide all contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their health care plans. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD. “We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write our letters from the Nashville jail, just...

Starting in 2012, the government will charge a new fee to your health insurance plan for research to find out which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best. But what will Americans do with the answers? The goal of the research, part of a little-known provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, is to answer such basic questions as whether that new prescription drug advertised on TV really works better than an old generic costing much less. But in the politically charged environment surrounding health care, the idea of medical effectiveness research is eyed with suspicion. The insurance...

Blue Dog Democrat Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) said that most Americans do not understand that federal entitlements are not “bank account” programs that hold their money, adding that Social Security is not even a legal guarantee -- "Legally, they're not even promises." Cooper, asked about potential reforms to Medicare and Medicaid, said that the core problem was that the public does not understand the true nature of entitlements. “Many Americans don’t really realize that Medicare is a government program,” Cooper said at a press conference with fellow Blue Dogs on Wednesday.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea's health care system is in shambles, with doctors sometimes performing amputations without anesthesia and working by candlelight in hospitals lacking essential medicine, heat and power, a rights watchdog said Thursday. North Korea's state health care system has been deteriorating for years as the country's economic difficulties worsen.

As I’ve long suspected, “health care reform” has emboldened the Justice Department to take a more active role in enforcing government price controls against physicians. Today the Antitrust Division, joined by Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, forced a a group of Boise orthopedists to accept price controls for worker’s compensation and HMO contracts as part of a settlement accusing the doctors of “price fixing”: According to the complaint, the conspiring orthopedists engaged in two antitrust conspiracies, which took place from 2006 to 2008. In the first conspiracy, through a series of meetings and other communications, the orthopedists agreed not to...

Commerce is the buying and selling of things. The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate commerce among the several states. But before commerce can be regulated by Congress, people must first engage in commerce. Since Congress constitutionally does not have the authority under the Commerce Clause to force people to engage in commerce in the first place, they cannot tax/fine them for not engaging in commerce (buying a health insurance policy per the individual mandate). And neither can Congress force the several states to force the citizenry within the several states to make people engage in commerce (buy...

Under this act, any new legislation that proposes a mandate on state and local governments estimated to cost more than $50 million dollars must have a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate and provide the funding to pay for the mandates. How many states are going to have to deal with unfunded mandates that far exceed $50 million dollars and into the tens of billions of dollars each year and pertain to a host of services that will have to be funded by the federal gov't under ObamaCare? If the unfunded mandates are funded, that would skyrocket the actual cost of...

Let me see if I get this right... The AP article says that the Heritage Foundation, Nixon and the GOP were for the individual mandate in the past. They say that the GOP was for the mandate as an alternative to HillaryCare in 1994. They then bring up Mitt Romney recently being for the individual mandate. First of all, I didn't see a run down of just how many in the GOP supported the individual mandate in 1994. Secondly, they don't show how many of them are still in office after that. Third, to not list who in the GOP...

According to news reports, Barack Obama is scheduled to go to Capitol Hill this afternoon to lobby the House Democrat caucus to support his takeover of the American healthcare system.Latest reports show that there are still three dozen or more undecided Democrats.With Obama traveling to Capitol Hill while thousands of Tea Party Patriots are expected to be there at the same time, the Patriots will have a great chance to bring their message directly to Obama and the Democrats by surrounding them (as best as possible) at the Cannon House Office Building.From the AFP: Obama was due to meet Democratic...

The compelling part is that Jacob Hacker, the man who "shopped" this plan to Congress (according to NPR), states unambiguously that his plan -- and he should know -- is expressly designed to displace private insurance. "It's not a Trojan Horse," he says, "because it's right there!" I.e., it can't be a Trojan Horse if it's so obvious about its purpose.

Here is the problem with hope and change. If you throw around empty phrases like this, and build people’s hopes up with high expectations and utopian ideals, things can only go in one direction…anti-climax. This is especially true if the utiopian ideals are built on a platform of flawed logic. Socialism sounds good to people’s hearts, but human nature will never allow it to succeed. Every proposal of “change” Obama is proposing has been built from a foundation of socialist ideas. Common sense tells us that you can’t spend yourself out of debt, but thats what Obama proposed and rushed...

Patients were allegedly left screaming in pain and drinking from flower vases on a nightmare hospital ward. Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust over three years, a damning Healthcare Commission report said. The watchdog's investigation found inadequately trained staff who were too few in number, junior doctors left alone in charge at night and patients left without food, drink or medication as their operations were repeatedly cancelled. Patients were left in pain or forced to sit in soiled bedding for hours at a time and were not given...

Life insurers to impose 'fat tax' on the obese, costing up to 50 per cent moreBy BECKY BARROW - More by this author » Last updated at 22:37pm on 22nd February 2008  A "fat tax" is to be imposed on the obese by life insurance firms, it emerged last night.  Around 50 per cent extra could be charged on new premiums - and the threshold at which the higher rate starts will be lowered. The increased charge can be up to 400 per cent if you fall into other high risk categories, such as being a smoker or having...

Filmmaker Michael Moore praises the UK's National Health Service as a model for the U.S. in his latest film, "Sicko," but record numbers of British citizens have apparently not seen the movie and are going abroad and paying out of their own pockets to obtain better health care. More than 70,000 Britons will have treatment abroad this year, the London Sunday Telegraph reported, a number that is forecast to rise to 200,000 by 2010. In the first survey of its kind in the UK, Britons said long waits for treatment by the NHS and fears of the growing hospital-infection crisis...

Authorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) runs out at the end of September. This gave the Democrats and some Republicans in Congress an opportunity to vote in July to expand this government health insurance program. SCHIP is supposed to provide health insurance for children whose families make too much money to qualify for medical welfare, i.e., Medicaid, but who can't afford to pay for private health insurance. Initially, this meant families whose annual incomes were twice the poverty level. This amounts to a $40,000 income for a family of four in 2007. Since SCHIP began operating in...

Hillary redefines shameless. From the New York Post: HILL LABELS GOP TACTICS A ‘DISGRACE’ By IAN BISHOP Post Correspondent June 22, 2006 — WASHINGTON - Republicans are a "disgrace" for playing politics with the war in Iraq, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton charged yesterday as she moved to turn the spotlight away from Democratic infighting over when to withdraw U.S. troops. "They choose to tar all who disagree with an open-ended, unconditional commitment as unpatriotic, as waving the white flag of surrender. They may not have a war strategy, but they do have an election strategy," Clinton charged on the Senate...