Proponents of vast programs like ObamaCare often shrug off complaints by claiming, “Those are just anecdotes.” Still, what is history but a series of anecdotes? And while anecdotes may give an incomplete picture, they are less susceptible to fabrication than large “studies,” which can be — and often are — manipulated to suit the agenda of those who conduct or pay for the study.

If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything. — Fred Menger 

With these points in mind, consider these three patients:

If you’re a baby boomer, you’re expecting Medicare to pay for that knee replacement or cataract operation you’ll need in 10 or 20 years. Don’t count on it. Health care reform is taking a dangerous turn.

In Part 1 of this article we discussed the content and tone of the political rhetoric used by leftist propagandists in criticizing the proposed GOP health care plans vis-à-vis ObamaCare.

Of a fallen tree all make kindling, says the old proverb, and like most refrains, it conveys an element of truth. The fact the Republicans are having difficulty agreeing on a winning alternative plan to ObamaCare makes both the Senate and House proposals looming targets for critics.

This is a commentary written in response to an article published in Surgical Neurology International and penned by the retiring neurosurgeon Dr. Clinton Frederick Miller that was highly critical of American medicine. He opines that a major overhaul, or rather overturn, of the American health care is necessary to correct the myriad of alleged abuses he perceives in the system. In his quest for reform, Dr. Miller also made a pitch toward supporting ObamaCare as a stepping stone in the implementation of socialized medicine in the US.[17]

I read in the news with great jubilation that one-third of Georgia hospitals earned an "A" grade on patient safety. Overall, Georgia was rated at No. 10 "among states with the highest percentage of top-performing hospitals." Even more apropos, Middle Georgia was not left in the boondocks by Metro Atlanta. In Macon, both Coliseum Medical Centers and Coliseum Northside Hospital received "A" ratings for autumn 2015. Unfortunately, the Medical Center, Navicent Health, did not fare well and earned a "C" rating.

Source: The Telegraph

It is not often one comes across a book that contains so much useful and enlightening information and wisdom. In Vandals at the Gates of Medicine, Dr. Miguel Faria has captured the essence of our nation’s problem — collectivism. As he so forcefully points out, we have, as a people, abandoned the principles that made this a great nation, a nation of free and virtuous people.

When I get a chance I read Viewpoints, the busy electronic version of the Macon Telegraph (MT), which frequently has heated discussions. On September 5, a discussion centered on a MT reader who stated that although in good health at age 75, his doctor would not perform a PSA test or a colonoscopy because "it was not needed" and besides "something else would kill me before colon or prostate cancer does [given his age]."

I have visited 70 countries all over the world. There is no healthcare system that provides the excellence that the USA system does. Much of what you read in the press is not true.(2) Virtually everyone in the USA can obtain healthcare; for those who are “involuntarily uninsured” the number is near 4% not the 47% that everyone quotes.(2,11) I would fully support some system to provide care for the involuntarily uninsured in any system or country.

Acquiescence is the trademark of the slave.
Aristotle (4th Century B.C.)

As you may or may not know, there are no physicians from organized medicine serving on Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Health Care Task Force—MDs who represent practitioners and their patients. Those MDs who are on the task force, according to the American Medical Association (AMA), are mostly “federal employees” who do not represent the profession. It is reasonable to assume that more likely they represent the bureaucracies whence they came and which sign their paychecks.

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work.
I want to achieve immortality through not dying.

Woody Allen

Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their Government, they will find that their Government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish ambitions.

Calvin Coolidge (30th President of the U.S. [1923-1929]) and
Alfred E. Smith (Joint Statement issued October 12, 1932)

A half-truth is a whole lie.
Jewish Proverb

Anything repeated three times in Washington becomes fact.
Eugene McCarthy

All the information that has come to light regarding the deliberations, inappropriate and shocking revelations, of the secret Health Care Task Force of President Bill and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton thanks to the lawsuit, AAPS v.

But what events have led us to this deplorable state of affairs with American medicine headed inexorably in the wrong direction—down the path of welfarism, collectivism, and corporatism? To answer this loaded and troublesome question, perhaps one should ponder the words of the politician par excellence, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who once admitted, “Nothing just happens in politics. If something happens, you can be sure it was planned that way.”  So, in our search for answers, let us glean and ponder the changes ushered in the 1960s by the Great Society of President Lyndon B.

Since the time of Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.), the Father of Medicine, physicians have traditionally subscribed to doing no harm and prescribed what is in the best interest of their individual patients; in other words, putting their patients first. This concept is known as individual-based ethics.

The new bioethics movement, on the other hand, subscribes to population-based ethics, in which physicians become obligated to make decisions for their patients in concert with what is in the best interest of society or the state.

The upholding of Obamacare by the Supreme Court in an unexpected 5-4 political decision is a travesty of American constitutionality. It is a sad day in the country when a knowledgeable chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court betrays the country and places himself and his legacy -- not to mention the chants for “change” and “progress,” and his obvious desire for a favorable, epochal association with the first African-American president -- ahead of the moral and economic well-being of the nation.

The upholding of ObamaCare by the Supreme Court in an unexpected 5-4 political decision is a travesty of American constitutionality. It is a sad day in the country when a knowledgeable Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court betrays the country and places himself and his legacy — not to mention the chants for "change" and "progress," and his obvious desire for a favorable, epochal association with the first African-American president — ahead of the moral and economic well being of the nation.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010), more commonly referred to as ObamaCare, has become one of the most controversial pieces of legislation passed by the Democrat-controlled, 111th U.S. Congress during President Obama’s administration.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010), more commonly referred to as ObamaCare, has become one of the most controversial pieces of legislation passed by the Democrat-controlled, 111th U.S. Congress during President Obama’s administration.

In Part I of this article, I discussed a concept that is always on the mind of the socialist planner and that is "social utility." To fully understand this concept one has to understand the socialist philosophy, if it can indeed be called a philosophy — in general, philosophies are analytical.

One characteristic of the collectivists is that when a particular term becomes unpopular, such as the word socialism, they create a succession of more socially friendly terms. For example, in the 1800s they did not shy away from the term socialism, but as people began to understand that socialism was a form of social control and engineering, they dropped the term for more acceptable terms such as liberalism, progressivism and collectivism. The socialist promoting a government-run health care system did likewise.

In a recent letter to the editor published in my local newspaper, the Macon Telegraph (9/16/11), Jack Bernard, a self-described "Republican,” retired health care executive, was "disconcerted by the ideological free market rigidity” that he observed during a debate by the Republican presidential candidates concerning “the health care reform question.”

In a recent column, Jack Bernard, a self-described “Republican” retired health care executive, was “disconcerted by the ideological free market rigidity” of Republican presidential candidates as it regards health care.

The retired “Republican” executive, among other things, decried Rep. Michele Bachmann’s alleged tarring of ObamaCare as a “socialized medicine plot.” His solution is simply “to copy the health care of other developed (socialized) nations” and use more “regulatory authority to cover everyone and hold down costs.”

The winter of 1996 generated “interesting times” for the Arizona Chapter of the AAPS. After our legislative success in establishing an HMO Disclosure bill last year, we attempted to expand on past accomplishments by seeking passage of a Patient Protection Act. Our bid was summarily killed by a legislator who the Arizona Medical Association (ArMA) had supported.

The California Chapter of the AAPS (CAAPS) has been in existence for about 18 months now. The Golden State has been a battleground in which our chapter has been in a continual struggle against managed care (reportedly controlling 85% of the health care market), on the one side; and an influential bunch of single-payer advocates on the other side. (Three million Californians voted for a single-payer system in the 1994 ballot initiative.) Some of these battles were reported last year at the AAPS Annual Meeting in Falls Church, Virginia.

With the goal of stopping the use of capitation as a method of paying health care providers in his state, Salem Oregon ophthalmologist, Dr. Gordon Miller, has circulated a citizen initiative petition banning the practice, and claims to have enough signatures to place the issue before the Oregon voters in November 1996.