Docs 4 Patient Care

Think the American Medical Association is the end-all when it comes to what doctors in the U.S. believe? Think again. The AMA represents less than one-quarter of all doctors in the U.S. Further, the AMA is about politics, not medicine.

That is why there are groups like FACS and Docs 4 Patient Care. These groups make sure that the AMA doesn't come out and fraudulently claim to speak for all physicians.

In fact, here is what D4PC stands for:

•There is no logical reason to hastily pass this legislation by a predetermined deadline. We have one chance to get this right. •Bring "all" stakeholders together to help assure a meaningful and sustainable reform by considering many recommendations and proposals. •Adopt a patient-centered approach to healthcare reform that empowers patients and promotes freedom of choice. •Use the power of government to assist the uninsured obtain health coverage through modification of the tax code, such as tax credits and vouchers. •Reduce high insurance premiums by opening up patient risk pools across the entire nation, thereby, diffusing risk. •Allow the individual/family to be the "owner" of the policy making their health care coverage portable and available if they lose their job or move to a new place of employment. This will eliminate exclusion from the new employer's plan for a “pre-existing” health issue and also eliminate a waiting period to qualify for enrollment. •Encourage and expand Health Savings Accounts. Tax-Free savings vehicle for planned and/or unexpected medical expenses. •Tort Reform. The costs to our healthcare system secondary to the practice of defensive medicine are over $100 billion annually, or $2,000 per family. •Insurance Reform. Guarantee insurability due to pre-existing illness. Eliminate Insurance company antitrust exemption.

Further, there will be a D4PC rally on September 10, 2009 in Washington D.C. at the Senate Upper Park. (That's just north of the Capitol Building.)

You can check out their website on-line here:

Docs 4 Patient Care

And their Mission Statement on-line here:

D4PC Mission Statement

So, How Is The Glenn Beck Boycott Going?

Not too well it seems. Right about now, the executives at GEICO, Progressive and a whole bunch of other companies are lamenting the fact that they have now lost out on a market of a potential 3 million viewers, and they are missing it in the middle of a recession.

From TV By The Numbers:

Though a little scandal might alienate advertisers, it’s pure ratings gold. Last night Glenn Beck had over 3 million viewers at 5pm, second only to O’Reilly for the night. But, Beck had more 25-54 viewers than O’Reilly (888K to 876K). I don’t watch or really even care about the cable news wars, but still…wow. Even though Beck airs before primetime, when there are fewer people watching TV, he had the most 25-54 viewers in the cable news world for the night. ... 5PM – P2+ (25-54) (35-64) Glenn Beck– 3,040,000 viewers (888,000) (1,385,000) Situation Room—688,000 viewers (141,000) (271,000) Hardball w/ Chris Matthews—536,000 viewers (139,000) (217,000) Fast Money—215,000 viewers (55,000) (80,000) Prime News–267,000 viewers (97,000) (109,000)

Those companies might want to rethink the boycott before their competitors come in and take advantage of the mistake.

You can access the original article on-line here:

Big Beck: Goes Over 3 Million Viewers, Beats O’Reilly In Demo: Cable News Ratings For Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Robert Seidman
TV By The Numbers
August 27, 2009

A Spy 'Outing' Game For Real

So, where are all the libs who were rallying around Valerie Plame a few years ago? They were all screaming about how horrible it was that Plame got "outed" as a CIA agent.

For some reason, all those same libs are now silent (I would say shamefully silent) about John Adams Project defense lawyers for the terrorists who will truly "out" current CIA operatives and expose their families as well. Whereas Valerie Plame showed how much her privacy had been violated by posing for the cover of Vanity Fair, a nationally circulated magazine, the current outings will put agents and their families in danger of reprisals from the terrorists themselves.

(I wonder if Barack Obama realizes this and if so, does he even care? He seems to care more about the terrorists than he does about American lives.)

Writing for the Washington Times, John Armor has the following:

First, the Plame Affair. According to the mainstream media, that was about the "outing" of a CIA "covert operative" in violation of federal law. But that law applies only to people who had been a covert operative "within five years." The only person who identified her as a CIA covert operative within five years of her service was her husband, who let the cat out of the bag in a Who's Who entry. Mrs. Plame was not outed by anyone, per the law.

That's right. Even Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald admitted that there was no violation of Federal law in the Plame case. But, he overstepped his bounds when he went after Scooter Libby on what were obviously trumped-up charges.

Read on:

However, the fraud of the Plame blame game does not detract from the real purpose of the CIA-protective law. It's designed to protect covert CIA agents from being killed by enemies who would do so in a heartbeat if they knew who these agents are. That brings us to the current situation. The defense counsel for certain Guantanamo Bay detainees is receiving help from the John Adams Project, a combined effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. According to numerous accounts, these defense lawyers have John Adams Project researchers taking photos of CIA covert operatives. And these lawyers have already shown these photos to their clients in Guantanamo Bay and are now seeking the legal right to release the photos to the public.

If the Plame affair were so infuriating to the libs, then they should be surrounding the Justice Department right now demanding that these photos never get released. Because, unlike the Plame situation in which Valerie was never in any danger, the agents that will be outed by this investigation will most certainly be in danger as will their families.

Clearly, The ACLU couldn't care less about the safety of these people! If anyone from the ACLU wishes to refute this, please feel free to leave a response.

Armor goes on to say:

More likely these photos were taken in the home communities of these agents, placing not only them, but their families and neighbors in the cross hairs of murderers. And that is precisely why the law that never actually applied in the Plame Affair, does apply today. It may be that just showing the photos of the CIA agents to their clients turns the assistants who photographed them and the lawyers who passed them on, into criminals themselves. Beyond that, there is the matter of what happens if these photos are offered as evidence in a trial.

The choice here is clear. If you support protecting innocent Americans, you will be against letting the ACLU out these agents. If you support the terrorists, you will agree with putting these agents and their families at risk by releasing these photos.

I will always go with protecting Americans. It's clear that the ACLU and other libs want the opposite.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

A Spy 'Outing' Game For Real
John Armor
Washington Times
August 26, 2009

Cruel And Neglectful Care Of One Million British Patients Exposed

There must be something in the water over in the United Kingdom these days. Lately, there seems to be no end of news items exposing how poorly the socialized health care system they have is serving its intended goals. That is to say, NHS is shaping up to be a huge failure.

From Rebecca Smith of the Telegraph UK:

In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with 'neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel' treatment. The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff. The Patients Association said the dossier proves that while the scale of the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust - where up to 1,200 people died through failings in urgent care - was a one off, there are repeated examples they have uncovered of the same appalling standards throughout the NHS.

Those who read my blog on a regular basis know very well what the mention of Mid-Staffordshire refers to.

And I cannot stress enough that if this had happened here in the United States, it would be the lead story for CNN and the front-page headline for the Washington Post and New York Times for at least a month-running.

Here are some more examples of how a socialized haelth care system would treat its patients, especially those for whom care is to be rationed:

Pamela Goddard, a piano teacher from Bletchingley, in Surrey, was 82 and suffering with cancer but was left in her own excrement and her condition deteriorated due to her bed sores. Florence Weston, from Sedgley in the West Midlands, who died aged 85, had to remain without food or water for several days as her hip operation was repeatedly cancelled.

Treatment of seniors under any socialized health care sytem is especially bad, and would still be bad under a U.S. socialized health care system.

Socialized health care has been a disaster everywhere it has been tried. We do not want to bring that disaster here to America.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

'Cruel And Neglectful' Care Of One Million NHS Patients Exposed
Rebecca Smith
The Telegraph
August 27, 2009

Man Collapses With Ruptured Appendix ... Three Weeks After (British) NHS Doctors 'Took It Out'

The hits just keep on coming from Great Britain's National Health System (NHS). In this case, a man went in for an apendectomy, and a month later, after his appendix had supposedly been removed, his appendix ruptured, endangering his life and leaving him in intense pain.

From Daniel Bates at the UK Daily Mail:

After weeks of excruciating pain, Mark Wattson was understandably relieved to have his appendix taken out. Doctors told him the operation was a success and he was sent home. But only a month later the 35-year-old collapsed in agony and had to be taken back to Great Western Hospital in Swindon by ambulance. To his shock, surgeons from the same team told him that not only was his appendix still inside him, but it had ruptured - a potentially fatal complication. In a second operation it was finally removed, leaving Mr Wattson fearing another organ might have been taken out during the first procedure.

Wow! Such efficiency in socialized medicine, isn't there? But, all sarcasm aside, this is yet another in a long line of oversights (many of which resulted in the death of the patient) inflicted by the NHS on the people of Great Britain.

More:

The blunder has left Mr Wattson jobless, as bosses at the shop where he worked did not believe his story and sacked him. ... Following the second operation his incision became infected and he was admitted to hospital for a third time for treatment. He said: 'I had a temporary job at a sports shop but when I took in two medical certificates saying I had my appendix out twice they didn't believe me. 'Now I'm helpless. I can't go out and find a job, I can't go to interviews, I can barely walk and am in constant pain. Before the first operation they told me I had to have my appendix removed and when I woke up afterwards they said it had been a complete success.

So, not only did the NHS doctors have to go in a second time, but the second incision got infected too?

If this had happened in the United States, Mr. Wattson would be on the verge of becoming very rich due to the lawsuits that would be filed against the doctors and hospital.

So, what did the NHS overseers have to say about the whole, sorry affair?

Paul Gearing, deputy general manager for general surgery at Great Western Hospital NHS Trust, said: 'We are unable to comment on individual cases. 'However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care he received at Great Western Hospital.'

No, I don't think it was "dissatisfaction" Mr. Wattson was feeling. It was intense pain because the NHS medical system that was supposed to take care of him failed miserably, just like a typical socilized medical system.

You can access the original article on-line here:

Man Collapses With Ruptured Appendix ... Three Weeks After NHS Doctors 'Took It Out'
Daniel Bates
UK Daily Mail
August 26, 2009

More Reasons Why We Do Not Want Socialized Medicine

My son was born in December of 2008. We had the plans made long beforehand. And since it was to be an induced labor, we already had the hospital, staff and emergency contingencies all lined up before we even left home that morning. For us, it was no more difficult than planning a vacation.

When I contrast that experience with what I read in the following news story, I thank God that my family and I live in America and not Great Britain.

From Jenny Hope and Nick McDermott of the UK Daily Mail:

Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds. The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets - even a caravan - went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000. Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity beds is partly to blame for the crisis, with hundreds of women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they are full.

Again, I have to point out that if something like this ever happened in the United States, it would be the lead story on CNN and the front page story in the Washington Post and New York Times for at least a month.

While it is true that not all births occur in hospitals (babies have their own schedules regardless of what the parents planned), the fact that women in labor are being turned away by hospitals even though Great Britain's National Health Service promises timely care for all, is a scandal all unto itself.

More:

Additionally, overstretched maternity units shut their doors to any more women in labour on 553 occasions last year. Babies were born in offices, lifts, toilets and a caravan, according to the Freedom of Information data for 2007 and 2008 from 117 out of 147 trusts which provide maternity services. One woman gave birth in a lift while being transferred to a labour ward from A&E while another gave birth in a corridor, said East Cheshire NHS Trust. Others said women had to give birth on the wards - rather than in their own maternity room - because the delivery suites were full. Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley, who obtained the figures, said Labour had cut maternity beds by 2,340, or 22 per cent, since 1997. At the same time birth rates have been rising sharply - up 20 per cent in some areas.

Shut their doors to women in labor? Women giving birth in toilets?

Is that the utopia of socialized medicine that was promised to the British people?

I dare say it isn't. And I also say that I don't want such government-run travesties over here on this side of the pond.

Read on:

'It shows the incredible waste that has taken place that mothers are getting this sort of sub-standard treatment despite Gordon Brown's tripling of spending on the NHS.

They tripled spending and they still turn women in labor away from hospitals? Where did all that money go? Who accounts for it all?

Yet another reason why we absolutely do not want socialized medicine in the United States.

You can access the complete atory on-line here:

The Babies Born In Hospital Corridors: Bed Shortage Forces 4,000 Mothers To Give Birth In Lifts, Offices And Hospital Toilets
Jenny Hope and Nick McDermott
UK Daily Mail
August 26, 2009

And here is another horror story for good measure:

Father Turned Away From Hospital With Pregnant Wife Delivers Baby On Bathroom Floor - And Saves His Daughter's Life
UK Daily Mail
August 18, 2009

The Whole Foods Alternative To Obamacare

This is a story that should have been circulated widely by Old Media. But, since it undercuts socialized medicine as envisioned by Barack Obama, they simply sat on it in the hopes that no one else would notice it. Good thing we have a blogosphere to do the job that Old Media absolutely refuses to do.

John Mackey, the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Inc. has a nice eight-point plan for health care reform. It was published in the Wall Street Journal back on August 11, 2009. Here are the eight points:

• Remove the legal obstacles that slow the creation of high-deductible health insurance plans and health savings accounts (HSAs). • Equalize the tax laws so that employer-provided health insurance and individually owned health insurance have the same tax benefits. • Repeal all state laws which prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. • Repeal government mandates regarding what insurance companies must cover. • Enact tort reform to end the ruinous lawsuits that force doctors to pay insurance costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. • Make costs transparent so that consumers understand what health-care treatments cost. • Enact Medicare reform. • Revise tax forms to make it easier for individuals to make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to help the millions of people who have no insurance and aren't covered by Medicare, Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

Six of these eight points are self-evident as to why we need to act on them. There are two that bear study: Tort reform and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).

Here is how Mackey describes the HSAs:

The combination of high-deductible health insurance and HSAs is one solution that could solve many of our health-care problems. For example, Whole Foods Market pays 100% of the premiums for all our team members who work 30 hours or more per week (about 89% of all team members) for our high-deductible health-insurance plan. We also provide up to $1,800 per year in additional health-care dollars through deposits into employees' Personal Wellness Accounts to spend as they choose on their own health and wellness. Money not spent in one year rolls over to the next and grows over time. Our team members therefore spend their own health-care dollars until the annual deductible is covered (about $2,500) and the insurance plan kicks in. This creates incentives to spend the first $2,500 more carefully. Our plan's costs are much lower than typical health insurance, while providing a very high degree of worker satisfaction.

In other words, under this plan, if you go to a doctor just for a simple annual check-up, you would pay for it directly out of your HSA thereby relieving the insurance company of the administrative burden of processing such a small claim. And 90% of health insurance claims are in the small claims area of the spectrum. This would result in massive savings for the insurance company. But, at the same time, you will be covered if anything catastrophic happens to you. Another advantage here is that once you max out your HSA at $2,500, any money that would have gone into that account now goes into your own pocket. Thus, you now have a financial incentive to live a more healthy lifestyle.

The HSAs also go hand in hand with repealing government mandates as to what should be covered. That is something that should be left entirely up to the customer.

Tort reform is an essential part of health care reform as well. The problem here (and one that Barack Obama is deliberately ignoring) is that you have lawyers like John Edwards who seek to get rich quick off of medical lawsuits. Those lawsuits produce a great deal of fall-out that we (those who pay insurance premiums) ultimately pay for. All of those court costs get passed on to us in the form of higher premiums. (In fact, many women in the Carolinas were no longer able to afford OB-GYN care because the Edwards lawsuit drove OB-GYN insurance premiums higher than they could afford to pay.) But John Edwards and his ilk don't care that we have to pay higher prices so long as they themselves are able to get rich off of us. Also, doctors tend to do more tests than are necessary in an effort to stave off potential lawsuits. Those tests are then charged to insurance claims thereby driving costs even higher.

Included in tort reform should be a "loser pays" provision so that when frivolous lawsuits are brought against insurance companies, those costs don't get passed on to consumers.

I like this plan very much and will be writing letters to all my Congressional Reps asking them to support it. I suggest you do the same.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

The Whole Foods Alternative To ObamaCare
John Mackey
Wall Street Journal
August 11, 2009

The Real Ted Kennedy Legacy

I know that for the next several days that people are going to heap praise after praise on Ted Kennedy. They call him the "lion" (I would say "liar") of the Senate and other such things, but what has he really accomplished?

Apart from being one of the most vocal proponents of just about every left-wing, socialistic policy ever put before Congress, there isn't very much. Most of what he helped to put in place, for example the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act which resulted in toxic assets causing a credit market freeze, will be done away with over time as people come to realize that such policies do way more harm than good.

So, what will Ted be remembered for?

Writing for ABC News, Susan Donaldson James has this:

In the summer of 1969, consiglieres of the former John F. Kennedy administration -- Robert McNamara, Arthur Schlesinger and Ted Sorensen, among others -- convened in Hyannisport to write the apology that would save the young Sen. Ted Kennedy from himself. Only days before, Kennedy had left the scene of a fatal car crash on the small island of Chappaquiddick on Martha's Vineyard, taking the life of 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. The second-term senator waited nearly 10 hours to report the accident and offered virtually no explanation other than he "panicked." ... The details of the July 19 accident were salacious: a Regatta Weekend reunion party at a friend's cottage with all married men (except one) and six women -- the "boiler room girls" -- who had worked together on Robert Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign. After a day of sailing and heavy drinking, Kennedy drove his black Oldsmobile sedan off a small wooden bridge into Poucho Pond, trapping Kopechne in seven feet of water. Edward Moore Kennedy -- only 38 and up for re-election the following year-- had violated one of the cardinal rules in politics: "Never get caught with a dead girl or a live boy."

Many details of the scandal remain unresolved. Why was Kennedy's wife not allowed to hear the speech his handlers crafted for him after Kopechne was killed? Why was the Kopechne family paid off for their silence?

That is what Ted Kennedy will be remembered for. And it is a bad legacy that he leaves behind.

You can access the complete story on-line here:

Chappaquiddick: No Profile In Kennedy Courage
Susan Donaldson James
ABC News
August 26, 2009

Obama Administration To Give Terrorists More Fodder For Propaganda

Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder decided to move forward with prosecutions against CIA interrogators who protected American lives by extracting information from terrorists. Apparently, Obama doesn't think it was right for those CIA interrogators to get that information.

So, Eric Holder has appointed John Durham, a Justice Department prosecutor, to go after those interrogators and bring them to trial.

From CBS News:

Holder has appointed John Durham, a Justice Department prosecutor, to determine whether or not any laws were broken during the interrogations.

First, let us remember the Valerie Plame affair in which Plame (a CIA analyst who was not in a covert status at the time) was allegedly "outed" by someone in the Bush Administration. The libs and Dems went crazy screaming about how Plame and her husband were having their privacy violated, even as they both posed for the cover of Vanity Fair magazine.

Now, this investigation will most certainly "out" several CIA agents who are not only covert, but will now have their families exposed as well. That is a treasure trove of information for a terrorist to have. While some CIA interrogators may have threatened to kill a terrorist's children, terrorists actually go out and kill innocent children.

So, to all you liberal Dems, why is it okay to "out" these interrogators and expose their families to terrorist reprisals but you came to the defense of Valerie Plame who wasn't even in a covert status? I don't think any amount of hypocritical reasoning will ever be able to justify that.

But even more far reaching is how the terrorists are going to use this as propaganda against us and stir-up even more anti-American sentiment in order to bring more fanatical recruits to their cause of killing as many innocent Americans as possible.

And here is something interesting:

President Obama has said that he does not want to prosecute the former Bush administration officials who created the interrogation policies. But Obama's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, has added that the Attorney General's investigation into the legality of the interrogations is independent of the administration.

Didn't Obama say that we should look forward and not back? Apparently, Holder didn't get that memo. And given Gibbs' response to the whole thing, it looks as though Obama doesn't have any idea of what is going on over at Justice or how that department is forcing him to break one of his own pledges. Or Obama is pushing for these prosecutions while trying to keep his hands clean at the same time. I think this last possibility is most likely.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

Bush Admin. Official Criticizes CIA Probe
Dana Chivvis
CBS News
August 25, 2009

If It Weren't For Hypocritical Double-Standards ...

... leftist liberals would have absolutely no standards at all.

From Philip Elliot of the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama and his family began a weeklong vacation on this Massachusetts island with a message to the reporters who have crowded the New England villages: Chill out and don't expect much. Pleading for privacy, the White House said Obama would have no public events while vacationing on Martha's Vineyard with his family and close friends. Aides also asked that the journalists not take pictures of the Obamas' two young daughters, age 8 and 11, when they aren't with the president.

I fully expect the leftist news organizations like ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Washington Post, and New York Times to fully comply with Obama's request, just as they completely disregarded any expectation of privacy on the parts of Gov. Sarah Palin and her family in Alaska and President Bush whenever he was in Crawford, Texas.

Hypocrisy. Nothing more than arrogant hypocrisy.

Obamas Begin Martha's Vineyard Vacation
Philip Elliot
Associated Press via Yahoo News
August 24, 2009