BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By Dr. Mark E. Meaney Patient rights are under siege, as evidenced in a recent survey conducted by the National Institute for Patient Rights (NIPR). NIPR staff compiled the results based on responses from 100 randomly selected, former hospital patients who took part in the study. The results of the survey show that, despite billions spent on advances in medical technology, patients daily experience an erosion of their rights “at the hospital bedside.” Ironically, it may be a consequence of the success of science in medicine. Among those responding to essay questions, the following was a typical scenario. A hospital admits a loved one with “complications” (a medical euphemism for “we really don’t know all that’s going on here, but there are several organs involved”). While the loved one rests in bed, a line of doctors and nurses seems to form at the door. One after another, doctors enter the room, make a few comments, then turn around and exit. Primary care physicians refer patien...

ObamaCare: NO EXIT by SCOTT GOTTLIEB Perhaps the most common question I'm asked about ObamaCare is: "Will I be able to buy my way out of it?" The answer is: "Not unless you're very rich." The plan before the Senate creates a set of 50 state-based insurance "exchanges" that are established as markets for health plans. Consumers must buy policies from their employers or through the exchanges — but, either way, their choice of coverage is limited to one of four basic insurance plans that the government sanctions. Private insurers will still compete to offer policies but must model their coverage on one of these four templates. In short, the Senate bill explicitly standardizes health benefits and then establishes elaborate mechanisms (including subsidies and penalties) to pay for them. Here's the rub: While these four plans vary from low- to high-cost options, the benefits offered under them are pretty much the same. The difference between the chea...

from (major HAT TIP!) DEADENDERS: When you don’t listen to 75% of your state you know somethings fishy. Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, announced to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas. “We’re there,” said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), as he headed into a special meeting to outline the deal. Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with him on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. Nelson also secured other favors for his home state. Under the new abortion provisions, states can opt out of allowing plans to cover abortion in insurance exchanges the bill would set up to serve individuals who don’t have employer coverage. Plus, enrollees in plans that do cover abortion procedures would pay for the coverage with separate checks – one for abortion, one for rest of health-care service...

ABSOLUTELY CRIMINAL FOR THE U.S.! Uninsured patients with traumatic injuries, such as car crashes, falls and gunshot wounds, were almost twice as likely to die in the hospital as similarly injured patients with health insurance, according to a troubling new study. The findings by Harvard University researchers surprised doctors and health experts who have believed emergency room care was equitable. "This is another drop in a sea of evidence that the uninsured fare much worse in their health in the United States," said senior author Dr. Atul Gawande, a Harvard surgeon and medical journalist. The study, appearing in the November issue of Archives of Surgery, comes as Congress is debating the expansion of health insurance coverage to millions more Americans. It could add fodder to that debate. The researchers couldn't pin down the reasons behind the differences they found. The uninsured might experience more delays being transferred from hospital to hospital. Or they might g...

Barack’s Bullshit Healthcare Bamboozlement By Larry Johnson What garbage!!! Oh, it was smooth. It had some soaring rhetoric. But we’ve seen this tap dance before. The most egregious is his utter nonsense about “working with Republicans.” Sorry, Barry, but if you meant what you said then you would not have convened a Democrats only meeting at the White House yesterday. CLICK HERE IF YOU'RE ON AN AGGREGATOR TO VIEW THE ABOVE VIDEO If you meant what you said you would not have allowed your Administration officials to go out and savage Americans who dared speak up at town halls. If you meant what you said you would have invited John McCain to the White House last week or last month to make a genuine push for bipartisan reform. But you did not. You sat on your hands as the various monster plans were exposed for the chicanery they contained. And then you promise to pay for this mess by producing gold out of cow dung. You promise to pay for this program but fail to make clear how. Oh, you...

By CRAIG DELLA PENNA “The Health Insurers Have Already Won” reads the Business Week title. Go here for article. “Is Obama Punking Us?” reads the title of Frank Rich’s column in the NYT. Go here for article and please see Ani’s post here for a more in-depth look at Rich’s column. Rich actually has an epiphany: “The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy.” All I can say, Frank is “Well… Duh!” it only took you 545 days to figure out what we knew and told you way back in February 2008. No grass grows under your toes, boy. These are the latest in a growing stream of pundits experiencing the OMO (‘Oh, My Obama’ – formerly ‘Omigod’) syndrome, they’re waking up and saying ”Wha.. wha happened?”. The answer, of course, is: “Well, while you were stoned on your acid-infused Kool-Aid, somebody stole your country, guess who?” So, here’s the skinny on the healthcare reform ‘debate’, as ...

Update: SEIU gets phone call “threatening to teach union officials a thing or two about ‘the Second Amendment’” Brian Beutler reported at Talking Points Memo on Friday that a health care protester in New Mexico had been encouraging those following him on Twitter to bring their guns to town hall meetings — and use them if provoked. “If ACORN/SEIU attends these meetings for disruptive purposes, and you have a license to carry….carry,” Scott Oskay wrote in one tweet. In another, he suggested, “Stop being peaceful, and hurt them. Badly.” The Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU) appears to be the latest bogeyman for the anti-health care protesters. Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, for example, claimed on Friday that “SEIU thugs rolled up their sleeves and attacked a black conservative protester in St. Louis.” As described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, however, the facts of the incident cited by Malkin were far less clearcut. Out of the half a dozen people arrested following a to...

In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me — and by that time no one was left to speak up. - Pastor Martin Niemöller I am a disabled - woman - over 50. Three strikes? Are they coming for me? then you? Why everyone in the heath care fight—including Obama—plays on the anxieties of the elderly. By Christopher Beam First came the "birthers." Now, as President Obama makes a final push for health care reform, we have the deathers. Many senior citizens are concerned that health care reform would mean cuts to Medicare. That much was clear at a town-hall meeting hosted Tuesday by the American Association of Retired Persons at wh...

Alex Isenstadt As President Barack Obama tried to sell the American Medical Association today on his health care overhaul, the top Senate Republicans launched a familiar line of attack. They warned of rationed medical care, lack of patient control and government bureaucracy. “The American people will not stand for rationed health care,” Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl said Monday. “We believe that a one size fits all approach is the wrong approach." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a floor speech scheduled for this afternoon warned that what Americans "don’t want is a Washington takeover of health care along the lines of what we’ve already seen with banks, insurance companies, and the auto industry. Americans don’t want a government-run system that puts bureaucrats between patients and doctors." Kyl and McConnell introduced a bill today that would bar the federal government from using "comparative effectiveness research" — which, Kyl charged in a news ...

From THE REAL BARACK OBAMA by Procrustes There’s probably no more powerful a reminder of just how out of touch and clueless Barackistan HQ is than Organizing for America’s latest email directive issued by O for A’s David Plouffe — “June 6th: It all begins”. There was ZERO headscratching here at RBO HQ about the significance of June 6th. It just happens to be the 65th Anniversy of D-Day, the Battle of Normandy, June 6, 1944. So, is that what Plouffe is talking about? Hardly. Once again, POTUS and his faithful hord are deliberately tone deaf. And just what is the It that is to “begin” on June 6th, you ask? Well, here’s the email message: We especially like this part: We will look back on that day as the moment when the fight for real health care reform began in your neighborhood — perhaps even in your own living room. Hey, numbskulls, you just don’t get it, do you? FYI — The D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England, reports on the human sacrifice from the battle: The Allied casualt...

As a graying-baby-boomer who will be having more surgery within the next couple months and who's been disabled for 14 years, I see this happening and the Democrats have sunk so low as to try to SANITIZE this for everyone. Stop it NOW! To paraphrase Martin Niemöller: First they came for the elderly, but I was not elderly, so I did not care. Then they came for the disabled, but I was not disabled, so I did not care. Then they came for the infirm, but I was not infirm, so I did not care. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to stand up. This is despicable. And as a writer who prefers calm and reflective analysis, when such a course is possible, I’m shocked at having to write the above headline. But far more important than mannerism is the profound obligation of every citizen and active US resident to scream out against the despicable “healthcare” provisions in the “Stimulus” Bill. The so-called “Stimulus Bill” has in it a provision to establish a “National Coordinator o...

The right prescription for what ails our system. By David Gratzer With less than a month to go, presidential candidate Barack Obama wants to deliver a knock-out punch by hitting John McCain on health care. On Saturday Mr. Obama called his rival's health-care proposal "radical" and, in swing states, he is now blasting it in TV ads. Mr. Obama is also distributing mailers and organizing "Docs for Barack" meetings to rally voters. It's good politics for Mr. Obama. But it's bad policy. Mr. McCain's proposal -- to give every American the tax credit businesses get for buying health insurance -- is the right prescription for what ails our health-care system. The foundation of that system -- employer provided health insurance -- is crumbling. For decades, the percentage of Americans who get their health insurance at work has been shrinking. In August, the Census Bureau reported that the decline continues. Today, 59% of Americans get their health insurance thr...

As a person who has been disabled for 12 years now, even with insurance - I can attest to the tremendous and unmanageable burden health care costs have put on myself and my family. It's nothing less than a basic human rights violation. It's torture, it adds to the illness burden mentally & financially. As an American, a mother and a human being, there is something fundamentally wrong with this picture. By RALPH NADER This is a tale of pay or die that recurs again and again all over our country and only in our country in the entire western world. Advised by her physician to go to M.D. Anderson for urgent treatment of her leukemia, Mrs. Lisa Kelly was told she had to pay $105,000 up front before being admitted. The hospital declared her limited insurance unacceptable. Sitting in the business office with seriously advanced cancer, she asked herself – “Are they going to send me home?” “Am I going to die?” Time out from her torment for a moment. M.D. Anderson started this upfr...