From the TimesOnline.UK, Question a doctor and lose your child
PARENTS are being threatened with having their children taken into care after questioning doctors’ diagnoses or objecting to their medical care. (more…)
September 9, 2009
Don’t Question A Government Doctor
Filed under: Europe — Tags: Great Britain, socialized medicine — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 2:37 am
September 4, 2009
False Choices
Filed under: Healthcare Reform — Tags: Healthcare Reform, HR 3200, socialized medicine — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 10:39 am
Congressman Mike Rogers’ opening statement on Health Care reform in Washington D.C.
Equal Time
Filed under: Getting The Message Out — Tags: Healthcare Reform, Obama, Reagan, socialized medicine — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 9:38 am
President Obama plans to speak to American school children next week. The Department of Education created a teaching plan for it. How about adding this to the program?
Ronald Reagan Speaks Out Against Socialized Medicine
September 3, 2009
March On Washington In Valparaiso September 2, 2009
Filed under: Protests — Tags: Big government, Healthcare Reform, Indiana, Moveon.org, protest, socialized medicine, Valparaiso, video — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 8:41 pm
Valparaiso rocked to chants of “USA! USA!” and “No Obamacare!” as over 300 people people marched down Washington Street in Valparaiso, IN, Wednesday evening to participate in the health care reform debate. Concerned citizens were there to get their views out.
August 23, 2009
Life And Death At The VA
From the Wall Street Journal, The Death Book for Veterans
…Last year, bureaucrats at the VA’s National Center for Ethics in Health Care advocated a 52-page end-of-life planning document, “Your Life, Your Choices.” It was first published in 1997 and later promoted as the VA’s preferred living will throughout its vast network of hospitals and nursing homes. After the Bush White House took a look at how this document was treating complex health and moral issues, the VA suspended its use. Unfortunately, under President Obama, the VA has now resuscitated “Your Life, Your Choices.”
Who is the primary author of this workbook? Dr. Robert Pearlman, chief of ethics evaluation for the center, a man who in 1996 advocated for physician-assisted suicide in Vacco v. Quill before the U.S. Supreme Court and is known for his support of health-care rationing…
More at the links.
H/T Hot Air
August 19, 2009
NY Congressman Wants Medicare For All Americans
Filed under: Big government — Tags: Healthcare Reform, private health insurance, public option, socialized medicine — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 1:49 pm
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) made it clear he’s voting for the public option because it will eliminate the private health insurance industry. Story and MSNBC video at Hot Air’s post, Video: Dem wants to eliminate private health insurance altogether.
August 17, 2009
Canada Govt.-Run Health Care System Needs Reform
Filed under: Big government — Tags: Canada, socialized medicine — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 10:24 am
Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada’s doctors
SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country’s health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country – who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting – recognize that changes must be made.
“We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize,” Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“We know that there must be change,” she said. “We’re all running flat out, we’re all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands.”
More at the link.
One reason why: Thousands of surgeries may be cut in Metro Vancouver, leaked paper reveals
VANCOUVER — Vancouver patients needing neurosurgery, treatment for vascular diseases and other medically necessary procedures can expect to wait longer for care, NDP health critic Adrian Dix said Monday.
Dix said a Vancouver Coastal Health Authority document shows it is considering chopping more than 6,000 surgeries in an effort to make up for a dramatic budgetary shortfall that could reach $200 million.
“This hasn’t been announced by the health authority … but these cuts are coming,” Dix said, citing figures gleaned from a leaked executive summary of “proposed VCH surgical reductions.”
H/T The Foundry
Public Option Back On the Table
Filed under: Big government — Tags: Obama, public option, socialized medicine — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 10:12 am
The President still wants government-run health care, according to the Atlantic: Administration Official: “Sebelius Misspoke.”
An administration official said tonight that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “misspoke” when she told CNN this morning that a government run health insurance option “is not an essential part” of reform. This official asked not to be identified in exchange for providing clarity about the intentions of the President. The official said that the White House did not intend to change its messaging and that Sebelius simply meant to echo the president, who has acknowledged that the public option is a tough sell in the Senate and is, at the same time, a must-pass for House Democrats, and is not, in the president’s view, the most important element of the reform package.
More at the link.
H/T The Foundry
House Health Care Reform Vote in Late September
Filed under: Healthcare Reform — Tags: Healthcare Reform, House of Representatives, Senate, socialized medicine — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 9:33 am
From Politico, Health concession fuels blowback
House Democratic officials say a public option will remain in their version of a health reform bill, even now that the White House has acknowledged it may be dropped later.
“This is just for the Senate,” a House leadership official said about the administration’s concession on a public option. “There is no way it passes the House the first time around without a public option.
“The liberals (around 100+) won’t allow it. It if comes back from conference committee without public option and there is the right pitch that it is this or nothing, then it may pass the House.”
Leaders now say the House will put off a vote on health reform until the end of September — to provide a cooling-off period from the raucous town meetings and to give strategists a better sense of where the Senate is headed.
The White House said the media frenzy was prompted partly by bored reporters who haven’t been paying attention to what the administration has been saying for weeks.
More at the link.
There aren’t enough votes in the Senate to pass the “public option” according to Democrat Senator Kent Conrad in an appearance on Fox News Sunday:
Momentum behind a new government-run health care plan appeared to slow considerably Sunday, as a lead Democratic negotiator called the option a “wasted effort” and President Obama’s health secretary suggested the White House is ready to accept a health care reform package without it.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., one of six negotiators trying to hammer out a bipartisan compromise measure on the Senate Finance Committee, told “FOX News Sunday” that the so-called public option simply does not have the votes to pass.
“The fact of the matter is there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option. There never have been,” he said. “So to continue to chase that rabbit I think is just a wasted effort.”
Conrad and other negotiators on the finance committee are instead pushing a system of nonprofit insurance cooperatives, as an alternative to the public plan.
“Co-ops are very prevalent in our society,” Conrad said. “They’ve been a very successful business model.”
More at the link.
August 16, 2009
Obama Backpedaling on Obamacare?
Filed under: Healthcare Reform — Tags: Healthcare Reform, Obama, socialized medicine — Northwest Indiana Patriots @ 10:16 am
Maybe. From My Way, Sebelius: Public insurance option not essential
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama’s health secretary is suggesting the White House is ready to accept nonprofit insurance cooperatives instead of a government-run public option in a health overhaul plan. A Republican senator says that is worth looking at.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says Obama still believes there should be choice and competition” in the health insurance market – but that a public option is “not the essential element.”
Obama has been pressing for the government to run a health insurance organization to help cover the nation’s nearly 50 million uninsured. But he had not seen a not-for-profit co-op as sufficient to offer consumers choice and competition that would bring down the costs of private insurance.
More at the link.