CURRENT NOTE: 

Certainly, July & August 2011 will be remembered for not only the physical heat, but the political heat as well. Somehow, as we are looking for monies to CUT from the budget, a $95 Million grant was made to build and support so-called SCHOOL-BASED 'CLINICS' in public schools primarily in urban areas. These have long been recognized as portals to lure students into sexual activity, provide birth control, and draw them to abortion when the birth control 'fails' which it often does...speaking of birth control, under OCare, all insurance plans will be forced to cover ethically-challenged contraceptives and sterilization...and while the other new article is from Britain, it bodes of things to come in the USA...

Perhaps the liberal leadership really believes we NEED abortion, to carry out genocide via this form of reproductive racism. Could it be?

No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 5939)
On July 29, 2010, Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Dan Lipinski (D-IL) introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 5939). This Act, if passed, would permanently establish policies that restrict the use of federal tax dollars for abortion. (Currently, many of these provisions must be renewed in law as part of various annual appropriations bills.)

The present Health 'Care' law contains at least three different policies on federal funding of abortion—none of which is consistent with the Hyde Amendment . . . or with similar longstanding provisions that govern all other health programs. The National Committee for a Human Life Amendment is asking citizens to urge those Representatives who have not yet cosponsored H.R. 5939 to do so. To learn more about H.R. 5939, and to contact your Representative, please visit the NCHLA Action Alert center -- http://www.nchla.org/actiondisplay.asp?ID=284

If the promoters of the Health act are truly on the side of LIFE, they should have no problem supporting this bill...

112th Congress, promote & protect HUMAN LIFE!

NEW! IPAB… An HCR Acronym You Need to Understand (Independent Payment Advisory Board){June 2011}

NEW! Obama Admin Hides Public Comments Against Obamacare Mandate

NEW! IOM Committee Behind the 'No Conscience Allowed' HHS Birth Control Mandate Tied to NARAL & Planned Parenthood

NEW! Commentary: Shouldn't "Preventive Care" Prevent Diseases Instead of Causing Them?

The Sebelius (Dept. of HHS) Obamacare Contraception Mandate

Commentary: Obama Administration Imposing New Entitlement for Chemical Abortion & Sterilization

ObamaCare Court Battle About to Intensify as Its Cost Rises

Column: Ration Health Care with Medicare Credits

School-Based "Clinics" Funding Boost

Obama Admin to Mandate Contraceptive, Sterilization Coverage Under Health Care Law

British National Health Service Extends Rationing to Surgeries

Judge Declares Pro-Abortion ObamaCare Unconstitutional / Second Federal Judge Strikes Down ‘Obamacare’ Law in 26-State Lawsuit

House Repeals, Senate Narrowly Defeats the Repeal of ObamaCare

ObamaCare Repeal Vote Next Week, Bill to De-Fund Abortion Soon (see above)

Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir

“Voluntary” Death Panels May Forgo Assisted Suicide Talk

Berwick Sets Up Death Panels By Fiat By Jeffrey Lord - American Spectator

Obama Admin Working to Rescind Conscience Rights on Abortion

Judge Rules Pro-Abortion ObamaCare Law Unconstitutional

As Elections Draw Near, How the Health Care Law Affects Abortion Funding in the USA

Does Obamacare Fund Abortion? Let Us Count the Ways...

U.S. Judge Delivers Setback to ObamaCare Foes

Federal Judge Ruled that Virginia's Lawsuit, Challenging the Constitutionality of Pro-Abortion Health Care, Can Proceed

Obama Officials Will NOT APPLY Abortion FUNDING LIMITS to Full Health Care Program

Opposition to Obama's Pro-Abortion Health Care Law Hits New High in Poll

Congressman Files New Pro-Life Bill to Cut All Federal Funding for Abortions

Retirements by Baby-Boomer Doctors, Nurses Could Strain Overhaul / Health-Care Retirements Looming / Doctors Face Medicare Pay Cuts

Doctors Face 21 Percent Cut in Medicare Payments

** Health Care Fact of the Day
http://www.thecloakroomblog.com/category/healthcarefod/

** Extensive FRC Health Care Resources
http://www.frcaction.org/healthcare

Legal Translation: Newest Health "Care" Proposal Pushes Abortion, No Protection for Major Pro-Life Doctors' Groups

Newly-Unveiled Obama Health Bill Proposal Even More Pro-Abortion According to NRLC: White House set to ram health overhaul through Senate as "budget" reconciliation measure

Commentary: Disapproval Does Not Equal Racism

Abortion Mandate Resurfacing, possibly by 21 Feb 2010 -- 11th Hour...

Barbara Boxer Confirms Nelson's Health Care Deal Does NOT Stop Abortion Funding

AARP -- Opposed to the Values of Most Seniors? Commentary

Analysis: Abortion Funding in Senate Health-Care Bill Stuck Between Reid and a Hard Place

Commentary: The AMA Can Now Defeat a Berlin Wall of Medicine (10Nov09)

MASA Urges AMA to Recall House Health Bill (HR 3962) Endorsement

11,000 on Abortion Mandate Webcast Warned against Phony Compromises in Healthcare Bill

Surgeon General Koop Letter Against Abortion Funding Closes Harry Reid's Office

Newsbytes on Health bill, 21 November 09 

African-American Leaders Oppose Black Pastors' Endorsement of Pro-Abortion Health Care

In Delivering Care, More Isn't Always Better, Experts Say

Devaluing Doctors -- and Care... A Physician's Commentary

Health Care Reform and Abortion - What's the Truth?

Death Panels: Euthanasia Group Behind "End-of-Life" Counseling

Former Soviet Union, Now Medical Student in U.S.: Where Will I Flee Next?

If Congress passes the House version of Obama Care, the Right of Conscience for Physicians will be eliminated -- this would be the silent FOCA...

House Health Care Bill Gives Doctors Financial Incentive to Push Euthanasia

Pro-Life Blacks, Democrats, Doctors Visited Congress to Oppose Health Care Bill

National Black Pro-Life Union held Press Conference in 2009 Regarding True Health Care

Planned Parenthood Continues Boasting Close Ties with White House on Health Care Bill

Health Care Reform Would Allow Planned Parenthood 'Clinics' in Schools...

 September / October 2011

Obama Admin Hides Public Comments Against Obamacare Mandate
 
The Obama administration today is coming under fire from pro-life advocates who submitted tens of thousands of public comments opposing a new mandate that would force insurance companies to cover birth control, contraception and drugs that may cause abortions.

The administration has initially approved a recommendation from the Institute of Medicine suggesting that it force insurance companies to pay for birth control and drugs that can cause abortions under the Obamacare government-run health care program.

The IOM recommendation, opposed by pro-life groups, called for the Obama administration to require insurance programs to include birth control — such as the morning after pill or the ella drug that causes an abortion days after conception — in the section of drugs and services insurance plans must cover under “preventative care.” The companies will likely pass the added costs on to consumers, requiring them to pay for birth control and, in some instances, drug-induced abortions of unborn children in their earliest days.

Several leading pro-life groups — including the Family Research Council and the nation’s Catholic bishops, among others — had led the charge to urge pro-life Americans to speak out against the recommendation, the mandate to force coverage and the lack of conscience protections of religious groups that don’t want to be forced to purchase insurance coverage with those objectionable provisions to send comments to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Even though tens of thousands of pro-life Americans have done so, Jeanne Monahan of FRC says the Obama administration is not making those comments public, as promised.
For remainder of article, visit -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/21/obama-admin-hides-public-comments-against-obamacare-mandate/

IOM Committee Behind 'No Conscience Allowed' HHS Birth Control Mandate Tied to NARAL & Planned Parenthood

The 'medical' committee behind the federal government’s impending mandate that insurers cover birth control without co-pay is populated by board members of NARAL and Planned Parenthood, as well as major donors to politicians favoring legal abortion.

The pro-life organization HLI America says public records show the ideological roots of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee, which recommended virtually all private health insurers pay for FDA-approved contraception as essential “preventive care” under the new health care law, including drugs that can cause early abortions.

IOM, a non-governmental organization tapped by federal health officials to recommend the new guidelines, describes itself on its website as “provid[ing] unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers.”

Among the 15-member IOM Committee on Preventive Services for Women are Claire Brindis, a member of the board of directors of the NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation; Angela Diaz, former board member of Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health; Paula A. Johnson, Chairwoman of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and upcoming recipient of NARAL’s 2011 “Champion for Choice” award; Magda G. Peck, the former board chairwoman of Planned Parenthood of Nebraska and Council Bluffs; and Alina Salganicoff, Vice President and DIrector of Women’s Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which strongly favors abortion and contraception on demand.

HLI America also highlights committee members’ monetary contributions to pro-abortion candidates, including a $35,200 donation to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA). One committee member, Linda Rosenstock, donated over $40,000 to pro-choice political candidates including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, and the Democratic National Committee.

HLI America says the list is “by no means an exhaustive” exposition of the IOM committee’s left-leaning political bias, but that “these eleven members—out of a total of fifteen—demonstrate a more than casual commitment to the furthering of the abortion lobby.” The group also notes that records showed none of the members having donated to a candidate who opposed abortion.

The July IOM report not only favored contraception, but indicated that surgical abortion coverage would have been a viable candidate, had federal law not stood in the way.

“Despite the health and well-being benefits to some women, abortion services were considered to be outside of the project’s scope, given the restrictions contained in the ACA,” wrote the authors.

Less than two weeks after the report was released, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the implementation of “historic new guidelines that will ensure women receive preventive health services at no additional cost,” including birth control, starting August 2012.

The report’s ideological tack on birth control - IOM called the drug’s main benefit “the ability to plan one’s family and attain optimal birth spacing” - mirrored that of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America during its intensive nationwide campaign for the mandate.

As the lone major force opposing Planned Parenthood’s campaign, the USCCB had criticized the idea of pregnancy as a disease remedied by “preventive medicine” and said the IOM report betrayed a strong ideological bias.

Dr. Anthony Lo Sasso, the lone member of the IOM committee dissenting from the report, concurred that the findings were tainted by advocacy goals.

“Troublingly, the process tended to result in a mix of objective and subjective determinations filtered through a lens of advocacy,” he wrote. “An abiding principle in the evaluation of the evidence and the recommendations put forth as a consequence should be transparency and strict objectivity, but the committee failed to demonstrate these principles in the report.”

Arland Nichols, the National Director of HLI America, noted that “nearly all of the invited speakers” at the committee’s three open information-gathering sessions were “known advocates of contraception and abortion on demand” - while no representative from the [life-affirming] health care system ... in the United States was sought.

“It is, perhaps, not surprising that political maneuvering and ideology have been obstacles to HHS’s purported goal of securing the health of the American people; we do not expect completely disinterested policymaking in our democracy,” wrote Nichols.

“What is surprising, however, is the audacity with which the committee circumvented professional research practices in order to arrive at the conclusions they held at the outset.”

[Sep 28, 2011, Kathleen Gilbert, WASHINGTON, D.C.,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/medical-committee-behind-hhs-birth-control-mandate-tied-to-naral-planned-pa?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=656379c874-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines09_28_2011&utm_medium=email]

Commentary: Shouldn't "Preventive Care" Prevent Diseases Instead of Causing Them?
 
by Denise Hunnell, M.D.

 Every package of either oral or injectable contraceptives includes a warning that they do not protect against sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.

This warning may need to be amended: A study published in the October 4 issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases found that use of a hormonal contraceptive doubles the risk of acquiring HIV/AIDS.
 
Researchers from the University of Washington conducted a very extensive study of HIV transmission in African women using hormonal contraceptives. Their analysis looked at over three thousand heterosexual couples in which only one partner was positive for HIV.

In couples where the woman was positive but the man was not, researchers found that men whose partners were using hormonal contraceptives were twice as likely to contract HIV/AIDS as men whose partners were not using hormonal contraceptives.
 
The results were similar when the researchers looked at women who did not have HIV/AIDS but whose male sexual partners did. Those women who were using hormonal contraceptives were also twice as likely to become infected as women who were not. The researchers point out that because so few women were using oral contraceptives, the increase in HIV transmission in this group was consistent with the findings in the injectable contraceptive group, but was not statistically conclusive.
 
There are several possible reasons for the increased HIV transmission rate associated with hormonal contraceptives.

First, exposure to contraceptive hormones results in a structural change in the vaginal lining, making it thinner and prone to developing small tears. These tears increase both partner's exposure to the virus.

Second, hormonal contraceptives weaken a woman's immune system, making her less able to repel an HIV exposure.

Finally, in the UW study, the researchers confirmed that women taking hormonal contraceptives shed more HIV virus in their cervical secretions, making them more infectious.
 
The authors of the study found the results so convincing that they recommended all women should be counseled about the risks of HIV infection and transmission before they are given hormonal contraceptives.
 
This important study further calls into question the Department of Health and Human Services'(HHS) decision to require all insurance plans to cover hormonal contraceptives as preventive care.

The mandate, which was based on a recommendation made by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), is already very controversial in many quarters due to its lack of conscience protections for employers, insurers and medical professionals.

Additionally, the mandate treats the normal healthy conditions of pregnancy and fertility as diseases to be prevented and disrupted.

Finally, both the IOM and the HHS willingly put the health of American women at risk by glossing over the significant risks of cancer, blood clots, and strokes associated with hormonal contraception.

There is credible evidence that these inexplicable policy decisions are driven by an ideological bias rather than by sound medical practice.
 
If the HHS goes forward with its plan to require coverage of hormonal contraceptives, it will be mandating the coverage of drugs that prevent no disease, and are increasingly associated with cancer and vascular disease. Add to these concerns this new study's findings of a 100% increased risk of HIV and AIDS transmission, and it becomes impossible to logically argue that hormonal contraception is preventive care.
 
Whatever the HHS's true intentions in continuing to move forward with full implementation of the contraceptive mandate by August 2012, it hardly seems like improving women's health is the goal.
[13 October 2011, Called and Encouraged, HLI Newsletter, v.1, n.7, HLI America Guest Column, Denise Hunnell, M.D.]

  JULY / AUGUST 2011

The Sebelius (Dept. of HHS) Obamacare Contraception Mandate

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (D/HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a former Governor of Kansas notorious for her comfortable relationship with partial-birth abortionist George Tiller, and who vetoed her state legislators’ ban on that unconscionable and brutal procedure in 2009, issued a new mandate to violate the consciences of ethically inclined health insurers and employers, including religious organizations on August 1, 2011.

Sebelius accepted an Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendation that “preventive services” mandated by Obamacare must include a full range of FDA-approved contraceptive methods, likely to include abortifacients  and/or embryocides like RU -486 (mifepristone) and “ella.

By normal definitions, "preventive services" would include such measures as screening for serious illnesses or diseases.

Contraception, in contrast, is not “health care;” pregnancy is a normal, healthy state.

In fact, it is hormonal contraception that produces a "disease" state, taking a healthy woman, with her own, exquisitely tuned, feedback balance of hormonal levels, and making her unhealthy, by upsetting that normal balance; it changes the physiologically "normal" into the abnormal.

This is shown by the increased risk, even if mercifully small, of adverse side effects of hormonal contraceptive use, from blood clots in legs and lungs to heart attack and stroke, as well as up to a doubling of the risk of cancer of the cervix, and possibly, of the breast.

Furthermore, as is still acknowledged by contraceptive manufacturers, "[A]lthough the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in ... the endometrium (which reduce the likelihood of implantation),” i.e. produces early abortion. Moreover, RU-486 is a deliberate abortifacient, while "ella," sold as an "emergency contraceptive," is no less so, as its mode of action is that of an embryocide, or embryo killer.
[August, 2011, Resource Roundup, The Hippocratic Resource, vol. 11, nos. 8-9]

Commentary: Obama Administration Imposing New Entitlement for Chemical Abortion & Sterilization
The Obama administration is imposing a massive new entitlement that includes fully-funded "sterilization" and "Morning After" abortions.

A few days ago, Obama imposed what syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock calls a "brand-new entitlement" through the ObamaCare law that will force every American to subsidize birth control including the "Morning After" abortion pill.

Through Sebelius and the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), he slipped his ObamaCare birth control/abortion mandate in place at the very height of the debt and spending debate -- confident that the story would be buried by just about every news organization across the land!

This new abortion mandate creates a government entitlement to birth control, "sterilization" procedures and the "Morning After" abortion pill to every woman in America -- with no co-pay, 100% funded by insurance providers through ObamaCare.

What business does the government have in creating an ObamaCare mandate to promote birth control, sterilization and early-term "Morning After" abortions?

This new entitlement represents a gross expansion of government into our private lives and a moral violation of the highest order!

+ + Take A Stand Against The ObamaCare Abortion Mandate

Just days ago, we launched a nationwide petition opposing this new ObamaCare birth control/abortion mandate.
Already, thousands have responded. But we must rally tens of thousands before Congress reconvenes after Labor Day so we can expose this administration's radical agenda to force us to pay for birth control and "Morning After" abortions through ObamaCare.

Please take a moment right now to sign our petition telling the Obama Administration, Congress and the HHS that you oppose the ObamaCare abortion mandate on moral, practical and ideological grounds.

http://www.grassrootsaction.com/r.asp?u=48707&RID=30261770

+ + ObamaCare is "AbortionCare"

At the height of the ObamaCare debate, a group of supposedly pro-life Democrats provided the crucial swing votes only after allegedly receiving promises from Obama that mandated abortion funding would not be in the bill. It was all a ruse to pass ObamaCare.

        As it stands right now, every American will be
        forced to participate in fully mandated funding
        of birth control and abortifacients like the
        morning after pill as part of "preventive services"
        healthcare under ObamaCare.

    In addition, the Heritage Foundation reports that
    through a "novel accounting technique," ObamaCare
    is "providing massive tax subsidies for health
    insurance plans that cover elective abortions."

        These moves clearly violate Obama's stated words
        during the ObamaCare debate and impose a taxpayer-
        funded abortion mandate through the new healthcare
        law.

I am encouraged by our initial response, but we urgently need thousands and then tens of thousands of concerned women and likeminded men to stand together in opposition to the ObamaCare abortion mandate. Please go here now to sign the petition and then alert your friends by forwarding this email or sharing this shocking development on Facebook.
Penny Nance, Chief Executive Officer and President, Concerned Women for America

Today's Action:
Sign CWA's Petition Opposing The New Abortion Mandate
http://www.grassrootsaction.com/r.asp?u=48707&RID=30261770

Resources:

CWA release opposing birth control/abortion mandate
http://www.grassrootsaction.com/r.asp?U=48703&RID=30261770

Heritage Foundation report on ObamaCare abortion funding
http://www.grassrootsaction.com/r.asp?U=48704&RID=30261770

Murdock: New Entitlement
http://www.grassrootsaction.com/r.asp?U=48705&RID=30261770
[19 Aug 11, e-letter]

ObamaCare Court Battle About to Intensify as Its Cost Rises
 The battle to derail the government-run, pro-abortion ObamaCare is about to intensify in the courts and in Congress.

As you know, there are numerous legal challenges to this health care law. We’re involved in many of them – representing members of Congress in filing amicus briefs supporting efforts by Florida and Virginia to challenge the law. In one case, a petition already has been filed urging the Supreme Court to take that case.

In fact, there will be a well-worn path to the Supreme Court on this issue. All of these legal challenges are likely to end up there at some point. And, ultimately the high court will determine whether ObamaCare survives.

Our lawsuit directly challenging ObamaCare is headed for oral argument next month (September 23rd) before a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. In our latest court filing we have made it clear that our position is “grounded in the Constitution” along with Supreme Court precedent. In arguments to reinstate our lawsuit, we contend that the arguments put forth by the Department of Justice “lack support in the text, history, or related Supreme Court jurisprudence of the Commerce or Necessary and Proper Clauses” of the U.S. Constitution.

Our challenge is clear: we believe the individual mandate, which forces Americans to purchase health insurance, is unconstitutional because it violates the Commerce Clause. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/08/10/obamacare-court-battle-about-to-intensify-as-its-cost-rises/






Column: Ration Health Care with Medicare Credits
Comment: ... Sarah Palin was right about "death panels."
A few months ago, the NYT had a article suggesting not even mentioning kidney dialysis as an option to the frail elderly.
   Unfortunately, "choice" is becoming an illusion as many ethicists now believe that too many terminally or chronically ill people are making the supposedly "right" choice of premature death. N. Valko RN

Column: Ration Health Care with Medicare Credits
 
Reports recently about three new drugs for treating those with advanced-stage prostate cancer were of special interest to me, not just because I was fortunate enough to catch my prostate cancer early, but because I know — or knew — several people who didn't.

Life-extending drugs debut frequently, and they usually seem exorbitantly expensive when weighed against their promise of adding a few weeks or months of life to someone with a terminal illness. In these prostate-cancer cases, one new drug costs $5,000 a month, another $8,000 every three weeks and a third $93,000 for a full course of treatment.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY's founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.


The costs in this instance are even more relevant because most of them would be paid by Medicare. This, in turn, raises hard questions about public policy, ethics and moral judgments that Americans are going to have to face even as elected officials in Washington try to avoid them. It portends a future, I believe, that includes either systematic rationing — even if we don't want to call it that — or some form of "death panels," though hopefully we won't call them that either.

Why? Because Medicare, like the federal debt, is not remotely sustainable at the rate it is growing. Fueled by Baby Boomers turning 65, its rolls will nearly double from 47 million to 80 million in the next 20 years. (It's already projected to go bust in 13 years.) A recent study by the Urban Institute found that a typical working couple retiring this year will get about three times as many dollars in Medicare services as they paid in Medicare taxes. What part of that upside-down equation do people not understand?

The next time you hear someone whining that "you can't cut my Medicare — I paid for it," just calmly tell them: "No, not most of it, you didn't."

Medicare is enormously popular because it provides virtually unlimited benefits for hospital care and heavily subsidizes benefits for doctor care and prescription drugs. It's essentially a single-payer system of socialized medicine that politicians like to condemn in theory and embrace in practice. But it's not going to last long without some mix of unpopular measures: large tax increases, draconian benefit cuts, some abstract rationing formula or bureaucrats making God-like decisions about patient care that could penalize certain lifestyles.

When I ask doctors about health care issues, especially rationing, their responses, without exception, echo those of Michael Ervin, a retired Dayton, Ohio, physician who founded and sold a highly successful private health maintenance organization and now chairs a non-profit health care group: "We already ration health care; people just don't understand it," he says. "It's a subject that allows people to take advantage of others' lack of knowledge."

Which invites the question, why does talk of rationing health care evoke such hostile reaction when rationing is such a common practice in the rest of our economy; when governments routinely adopt regulations or fund programs based on cost-benefit analyses that calculate the value of human life? The British system of socialized medicine — which, notably, is more popular there than our system is here —puts a figure, the equivalent of $49,000, on what it will spend to extend a human life for one year.

We could emulate the British, set up Medicare panels and let them make hypothetical choices like this: When it comes to doling out scarce dollars, should a 68-year-old man with lung cancer who has smoked a pack of cigarettes a day for 50 years be treated the same as a 68-year-old man who has a genetic defect that can be cured only with an organ transplant? We can't fund both, so who gets the money?

It might be a hypothetical question now, but it probably won't be for long. One drug industry analyst told The New York Times that life-extending drug treatments for prostate cancer could "easily" reach $500,000 per patient.

One alternative, I submit, is to move Medicare to a "cap and trade" system similar to those proposed to limit carbon emissions, thereby bringing free-market forces into play.

My plan would:

•Assign new Medicare enrollees a credit for total benefits capped at, say, $150,000 that would be adjusted for inflation annually. After the credit's exhausted, they'd be on their own. (This introduces the dreaded means-testing because some recipients would have paid in more than that in Medicare taxes, but even more would have paid in less, sometimes much less.)

•Permit beneficiaries to buy or sell Medicare credits, at whatever discount that could be negotiated, that could then be redeemed for services at full value. They could also donate them directly to others, or to "credit banks" run by non-profits and religious organizations.

•Limit the percentage of one's credits that could be sold, so that no beneficiary could fritter away all his or her allotment on flat-screen TVs or Caribbean cruises.

Doctors tell me this is too complicated to work, but I guess I'm too simple-minded to see why. If I were dying of prostate cancer, I think I'd jump at the chance to buy extra time from someone who's healthy and willing to take the risk to sell it to me.

I'd start with my neighbor. He's 74, runs 50 miles to 60 miles a week and several marathons a year, and has the body of a 50-year-old.

What does he need with Medicare?

[Don Campbell, a former Washington-based political reporter, columnist and editor, lives in Dayton, Ohio, and is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors. Don Campbell, http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-08-09-medicare-healthcare-reform-ration_n.htm ;
10 Aug 2011, N. Valko RN]

School-Based "Clinics" Funding Boost
NOTE: School-Based "Clinics" have long been recognized -- either directly or indirectly -- as portals to draw students into sexual activity (providing birth control and condoms) and abortion (helping students to acquire abortions without parental knowledge).

Abstract at the link below that is referenced in the National Assembly of School Based Healthcare July, 2011 newsletter (http://www.nasbhc.org/site/c.jsJPKWPFJrH/b.2564543/apps/s/content.asp?ct=11007657 ).

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X11000462
"Although access to an on-site clinic does not seem to lead to increases in all types of reproductive care in the population as a whole, sexually active females are more likely to have received more specific care and to have used hormonal contraceptives if their school has an SBHC."

Also: [ed. we have money for this, seriously?]

$95 Million Awarded to School-Based Health Centers Nation-Wide
http://www.nasbhc.org/atf/cf/%7Bcd9949f2-2761-42fb-bc7a-cee165c701d9%7D/HRSA%20ANNOUNCEMENT%20JULY%202011%20FINAL.PDF

For Immediate Release: July 14, 2011
Contact: Adrienne Ammerman, 202-638-5872 Ext. 215

$95 MILLION AWARDED TO SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CENTERS NATION-WIDE Health Resource and Services Administration Announces Grant Winners for School-Based Health Centers Capital Program
(Washington, DC) Today the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) awarded $95 million in competitive federal grants to school-based health centers (SBHCs) to 278 programs across the country. These programs will improve access to basic primary health care for school-aged children, many of whom have no other sources of care. The School-Based Health Centers Capital (SBHCC) Program (HRSA-11-127) is the first-ever source of federal funding to uniquely support school-based health centers.

The SBHCC program awards funds made available under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (section 4101(a)) to support expanded capacity of SBHCs and increase the availability, efficiency, and quality of care for children and adolescents. The funds are available for construction, renovation, and equipment needs.

A press release from the Department of Health and Human Services stated:
“The awardees are currently serving approximately 790,000 patients. Today’s awards will enable them to increase their capacity by over 50-percent, serving an additional 440,000 patients. School-based health centers improve the overall health and wellness of all children through health screenings, health promotion and disease prevention activities and enable children with acute or chronic illnesses to attend school. A full list of grantees is available at www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/07/20110714grantee.html.”

School-based health centers are a cost-effective investment, proven to reduce inappropriate emergency room use, increase use of primary care, and reduce hospitalization rates, particularly for hard-to-reach populations. Despite this, the House voted to defund the next round of competitive grants for the SBHCC by passing H.R. 1214 on May 4. The legislation has not yet been taken up in the Senate.

“More than 350 applicants from around the nation applied for this much-needed federal funding, which will allow SBHCs to switch over to electronic medical records, purchase dental equipment to provide oral health services, help build new clinics or expand or improve existing space, and more,” stated Linda Juszczak, Executive Director of the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC). “These projects benefit whole communities by creating construction and renovation jobs. We hope members of Congress who question the value of the program will tour the SBHCs in their communities to see the importance of these grants for children and their families.”

278 projects across the country received funding. Some examples include:

 HEALS in Alabama will build two new SBHCs. The funding will also provide an Electronic Health Records system to link the network of clinics, and increase efficiency and quality of patient care. It will update medical and office equipment and bring the clinics up to current quality standards. The grant will also provide appropriate and current computer hardware and other electronics to allow efficient operation of the EHR system and the upgraded medical equipment.
 Neighborcare Health in Washington State will build a new SBHC, replace outdated equipment at current sites, as well as introduce new portable dental equipment for use at multiple SBHC sites.
 The Dorchester County Health Department in Maryland will construct a new modular building for the SBHC located at North Dorchester High School (NDHS), complete with video-conferencing equipment to obtain off-site psychiatry services for students needing medication management for mental health disorders.

More than 1,900 SBHCs across the country provide access for nearly 2 million students to a range of primary, mental, and oral health care services. These services are provided without concern for students’ ability to pay and in a location that meets students where they spend a majority of their day: at school.

SBHCs are located in geographically diverse communities, with the majority (57%) in urban communities and more than one-quarter (27%) in rural areas. Students in schools with SBHCs are predominantly members of minority and ethnic populations who have historically experienced under-insurance, uninsurance, or other health care access inequities.

Further resources:
 Complete list of SBHCC grantees: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/07/20110714grantee.html
 HHS press release: http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2011pres/07/20110714a.html
 National Census of SBHCs: www.nasbhc.org/nationaldata
 NASBHC Fact Sheets: www.nasbhc.org/factsheets
To learn more about NASBHC or to schedule an interview with Linda Juszczak, contact Adrienne Ammerman at 202-638-5872 x. 215 or email
# # #
The National Assembly on School-Based Health Care (NASBHC) is the national voice for school-based health centers (SBHCs). Founded in 1995 to promote and support the SBHC model, NASBHC’s mission is to improve the health status of children and youth by advancing and advocating for school-based health care. Learn more at www.nasbhc.org
[14 July 2011, Press Release, NASBHC ● 1010 Vermont Avenue NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC 20005 ● 202-638-5872 www.nasbhc.org]

Obama Admin to Mandate Contraceptive, Sterilization Coverage Under Health Care Law

Following recommendations by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the Obama administration announced this morning that insurance plans will be required to cover contraceptives, which include abortion-inducing drugs such as Plan B and Ella, as well as elective sterilizations.

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a news release included the drugs as part of an essential “preventive care” package. “Historic new guidelines that will ensure women receive preventive health services at no additional cost were announced today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” she said.

The HHS release notes that “contraception methods and contraceptive counseling” are to be covered, while CNN notes that the preventive mandate will include sterilizations.

The mandate comes after a massive, months-long push by abortion giant Planned Parenthood to establish free birth control for American women, a campaign strongly opposed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Pregnancy is not a disease, and fertility is not a pathological condition to be suppressed by any means technically possible,” said USCCB pro-life chair Cardinal Daniel DiNardo last month.

The HHS also invited comment on a possible amendment to the regulation that allows religious institutions that offer insurance to their employees the choice of whether or not to cover contraception services.

But that announcement failed to allay conservatives’ fears: Anna Franzonello, staff counsel with Americans United for Life, told Politico that such an amendment would likely fall short.

“The Obama administration has repeatedly demonstrated that its idea of conscience is narrow and protections are shallow or meaningless,” she said.

Internal disagreements about the coverage mandate delayed the announcement by nearly a week, according to Politico.

Arland Nichols, National Director of Human Life International (HLI) America, said the decision was “very disappointing” as it was essentially ideological.

“It amounts to a federal decree that pregnancy is a disease and that children are an enemy of the health and wellbeing of women,” said Nichols in an email to LifeSiteNews.com.

The IOM report drawn upon by HHS listed the medical benefit of birth control as “the ability to plan one’s family and attain optimal birth spacing,” and secondarily, as treatment for conditions including acne and menstrual abnormalities.

The same report even suggested that elective abortion could also have been considered a mandatory “preventive service” had it not been for federal law: the authors note that abortion had to be ruled out “despite the health and well-being benefits to some women.”

Nichols also pointed out the “host of side-effects” associated with use of contraceptives such as the birth control pill. The drug in hormonal birth control pills has been classified as a Group 1 carcinogen, or a “definite” cause of cancer, by the World Health Organization.
[Aug 01, 2011,  Kathleen Gilbert, D.C., http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breaking-obama-admin-to-mandate-contraceptive-sterilization-coverage-under?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d8e1d01760-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines08_01_2011&utm_medium=email]

British National Health Service Extends Rationing to Surgeries
The National Health Service in England is increasingly rationing standard operations that patients may have normally taken for granted — in a move that worries bioethicists in the United States.

A new report in The Independent [http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cataracts-hips-knees-and-tonsils-nhs-begins-rationing-operations-2327268.html] reveals how hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among the many operations that two-thirds of health trusts in England are now putting on a “non-urgent” list in an attempt to help save the government-run health care program $20 billion over the next four years. The newspaper reveals one third of health trusts have already expanded the list of rationed procedures in the last 12 months and others are expected to follow suit.

Some of the example of rationed surgical procedures include limiting hip replacements to those experiencing severe pain, cataract operations are on hold for those whose eyesight problems don’t yet affect their ability to perform on the job, and patients with varicose veins will only be allowed operations if they are experiencing pain or internal bleeding.

The figures come from a new survey of 111 hospitals by an industry magazine and the survey also showed doctors are concerned about the effect the rationing will have on their relationships with their patients.

Birmingham and east London are reportedly the areas where rationing has expanded the fastest but Medway and Dorset are moving in that direction as well.

Chris Naylor, a senior researcher at the health think tank the King’s Fund, told The Independent that the rationing is related to the cost-savings the NHS asked medical systems to find.

“Blunt approaches like seeking an overall reduction in local referral rates may backfire, by reducing necessary referrals – which is not good for patients and may fail to save money in the long run,” he said. “There are always rationing decisions that have to go on in any health service. But at the moment healthcare organizations are under more pressure than they have been for a long time and this is a sign of what is happening across many areas of the NHS.”

The survey found 64 percent of the 111 hospitals have or will be implementing rationing policies for non-urgent treatments and those of limited clinical value.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “Decisions on the appropriate treatments should be made by clinicians in the local NHS in line with the best available clinical evidence and Nice [National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence] guidance. There should be no blanket bans because what is suitable for one patient may not be suitable for another.”

American bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, bemoaned the news, saying, “The UK’s National Health Service continues its collapse. And it is only going to get worse, considering the trajectory.  Imagine the screaming here if HMOs did any of that.”

“The continuing collapse of the NHS is not only an indictment of single payer health care: It is a warning to the U.S. about centralized control of health care,” he said. “The continuing collapse of the NHS is not only an indictment of single payer health care: It is a warning to the U.S. about centralized control of health care.”   [ http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/about-those-death-panels_536874.html ]

“Adding injury to injury, how easy it is for the bureaucrats to lard on the goodies on the private insurance companies’ dimes–as is already happening.  What makes us think that a too strained and bureaucratically suffocated private sector won’t eventually end up in a collapse–further harming the economy–and unable to provide for patients properly?” he said. “Once that happens (with malice aforethought?) Obamacarian class warriors will give a war whoop of triumph for having destroyed the dreaded private sector–and force us into single payer.  See, “NHS Meltdown” posts.  Lose. Lose. Lose.”
[Ertelt | London, England | LifeNews.com | 7/28/11,  http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/28/british-national-health-service-extends-rationing-to-surgeries/ ;  http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/about-those-death-panels_536874.html]

  JUNE 2011

IPAB… An HCR Acronym You Need to Understand (Independent Payment Advisory Board)

Working towards our top issue for the June edition of the HCR Monthly Review, I continue to be struck by the amount of macroeconomic data that will be driving the new HCR law. Indeed, most of the key performance measures in the 2010 statute are directly tied to the nation’s financial performance.  That is, our future healthcare delivery, or at least the provision of service under Medicare, will actually be calibrated and delivered based on our GDP and that, friends, is a new concept in American society.

One of HCR’s most compelling new tools, designed to respond to the results of the GDP, is known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB.  IPAB has attracted my attention lately, if only because of the large number of media reports that suddenly have been generated over this new acronym.  Check these out:

http://tinyurl.com/3rgczga

http://tinyurl.com/43ke72k

http://tinyurl.com/3ukafrt

http://tinyurl.com/3mchrmv

In particular, interest in the IPAB has been heightened since President Obama stated on May 8th that the new IPAB entity is part of the way he believes the Administration can “get at the general deficit issue”…i.e., he would reduce costs in the overall economy by expanding the authority of the IPAB to control health care costs.

Interesting…Ramping up the power of a relatively obscure, untested HCR concept that is not yet even formally in existence–to address the overall budget deficit?…But let’s keep moving here.  Clearly, something significant is going on with this IPAB idea, and so, for June, the HCR Monthly Review will take a shot at discussing the highlights of IPAB and try to understand why this issue has become so “hot.”

The Theory
So, what is the overall theory of IPAB?  Broadly writ, it appears this entity will serve as HCR’s  “enforcement arm.”  Starting in 2014, if, and let’s be honest here, when the costs of Medicare run over a certain prescribed target each year, IPAB will be responsible for staying within the prescribed Medicare budget by making adjustments in Medicare payments.   Essentially, per my above comments on GDP influences in HCR, depending on the data gathered on the pricing of health care, IPAB will have to adjust per capita Medicare reimbursement rates based on the performance of the healthcare sector and the broader GDP.  In short, although currently limited to only Medicare, it appears IPAB is set to become the first national administrator of healthcare price controls in the US.  (If you are really curious about the deeper details of IPAB powers, the best overall summary I have found is Kaiser’s report: http://tinyurl.com/3ns2tqn)

What led to the creation of IPAB?  Since Medicare was established in 1965, there have been many moments when it was clear that Congress either lacked the will and/or understanding of healthcare issues to effectively manage the important decisions that needed to be made in the delivery of Medicare.   A large portion of this, of course, was linked to political considerations; but some of this was clearly due to insufficient healthcare knowledge.  In the end, as is frequently the case when factors like these play into Congressional decisions, Congress simply did nothing…only making a bad situation for Medicare, worse.

And so, not surprisingly, as Congress battled through HCR in 2009 and 2010, one key issue that kept emerging in the debate was the need for an “independent” authority that could “dispassionately” apply deep healthcare insights to tough Medicare questions, and most importantly, make the hard decisions needed to keep Medicare fiscally solvent.  As Congress envisioned it, this entity would be made up of healthcare professionals, and although overseen by Congress, the panel would be given great latitude to rule on all manner of difficult healthcare issues that might wash over Medicare.  And, oh, by the way, ultimately the creation of IPAB would also take Congress completely off the hook in making these difficult Medicare calls…

In the end, primarily championed by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), IPAB emerged as a key plank in the new HCR law.  And only lately (per the above noted stories) have we all begun to realize just what Congress created.  Some have described IPAB as “the answer” to dealing with the cost crisis in healthcare for not only for Medicare, but also, potentially, for all US healthcare; while others decry it as the much feared “death panel” that will have the power to determine who lives and who dies in our society.

So, no matter how you come down on the idea, it’s a fairly major, new concept in American healthcare.  I have been mulling over IPAB this past month…and here are a few aspects of the entity that I have found intriguing.

The IPAB Board
First, this will be an appointed board; not elected.  As such, IPAB is tied directly to the Executive branch and all fifteen members of the IPAB will be appointed by the President (So far, no one has been appointed).  Twelve of the fifteen appointees will be seated only after Congressional approval; and three others will be appointed by the President, “in consultation with the Majority and Minority leaders of Congress.”  So, the folks serving on IPAB will not be electorally responsible to the citizens who will experience the medical results of IPAB’s decisions.  Interesting.

Further, these IPAB appointments are to be “real jobs.”  That is, whoever takes one of these positions will not be allowed to “moonlight” as a physician, insurance exec, pharmaceutical rep, nurse, pharmacist, union executive, etc.  It’s gonna be all or nothing to serve on the IPAB…with a set annual salary of $165,300.  Staggered terms of one, three, & five  years will be established so that there is a regular rotation of members, with each member serving no more than two consecutive six year terms.  (This is what is known in Washington, DC…as a “very good government job.”)  However, this “dedicated job” criteria of the position does potentially present some issues.  Logically, you would think that we would want our most qualified health professionals…think doctors, medical researchers, health lawyers, economists, etc., to serve on this panel.  But let’s be honest here.  Frequently those folks are earning considerably more than the federal stipend offered here, and, therefore, will likely not be keen to serve twelve years on this panel.  So, who will?  Hard to say.  However, as a result, it’s easy to understand why some folks are already uneasy about who will actually end up being appointed to this very important panel.

IPAB’s Power
Second, as alluded to earlier, this outfit will have substantial regulatory power to control and enforce the budgets of Medicare.  IPAB’s bottom line for cost controls will be based on per capita spending in Medicare, driven by the broader performance of the US economy.  To put this in context, the 2010 statute establishes a very clear formula for determining target growth rates for Medicare spending that IPAB is responsible for executing and controlling, starting in 2014.  Check this out:

“For 2015 through 2019, the target for Medicare spending per capita is the average of general and medical inflation: Specifically, the average of the projected percentage increase in the consumer price index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) and the medical care expenditure category of the CPI-U. For 2020 and later years, the target for Medicare spending per capita is the increase in the gross domestic product (GDP) plus one percentage point, which historically has increased at a higher rate than the CPI-based measures.”
http://tinyurl.com/6bp7t2m (p. 6)

So, there is really no doubt about it.  Pertaining to Medicare cost controls, these guys are locked in and will have full authority to hit their fiscal goals.

IPAB Cost Control Mechanisms
Third, there are obviously only so many ways to control costs in Medicare and that is what really has everyone up in arms.  What are the likely approaches IPAB will take to accomplish this?

Providers
Well, obviously, healthcare providers are a great cost control target.  If their fees can be cut or otherwise controlled, it will reduce Medicare’s costs.  However, that approach is clearly one of the major sore spots in the IPAB concept.  Since 1997, physicians practicing in Medicare have been subjected to a concept created by Congress called the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) provision of Medicare. http://tinyurl.com/6h2canw SGR was designed to systematically reduce and control physician payments under Medicare and it is fair to say that Congressional administration of the concept has been a disaster.  Year after year, Congress has been forced to patch up the law, and to date, no one is happy with it, least of all, the doctors.  (Are you now beginning to understand why Congress wants out from under this Medicare responsibility?)  In fact, the SGR “Fix” became a major issue during the HCR debate and in the end, Congress was not able to resolve the problem.  So, as you can imagine, doctors, and really all providers, are not sold on a broader, more comprehensive version of SGR as envisioned in the IPAB.  It seems to me that this alone presents a huge prospective problem for the IPAB panel in terms of controlling provider costs.

Medical Services
The second area for potential cost controls would include entities that deliver healthcare products or services to Medicare.  Pharmaceutical and biotech firms, instrument & device medical supply manufacturers, home health suppliers, insurers, diagnostic centers, etc, make up this group.

How will IPAB obtain cost savings from this group?  Let’s take the example of the pharmaceutical industry…Currently, the industry is subjected to significant rebate mandates under HCR.  On May 8th, however, the President made it clear that IPAB “could look” for more savings in the Rx area.  His suggestion?  Aggressively extending the use of a mandatory generic, as well as perhaps a therapeutic substitution policy, in all Medicare services, while demanding more rebates from Rx manufacturers for their brand name drugs in order for them to participate in the Medicare program.  http://tinyurl.com/5rd8d5v

The take away?  We can anticipate that the same sort of mandated cost savings approach is in store for all other medical services.  Needless to say, none of the medical services group, to date, seem to be enthusiastically endorsing this line of cost control thinking for Medicare.  Again, I would anticipate tough sledding for IPAB as they go down this cost control road…

Rationing
The third obvious way to cut Medicare costs is to simply reduce those medical services available to Medicare patients, i.e., rationing care.  This, of all the inflammatory terms thrown around in the HCR debate, is certainly the most volatile.  Indeed, the application of “rationing” is actually prohibited in the law.  http://tinyurl.com/6bp7t2m (p. 10)   That said, given the options available to IPAB, it is also the one concept most likely to be utilized as they struggle to control costs under the mandates of the HCR law.  Why?  It is the most direct way to get at the problem of cost overruns that they are mandated to control.

Thus, when pundits and opposition politicians accuse IPAB of potentially being little more than a US-version of the much reviled British National Health System’s “National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence” (NICE), http://tinyurl.com/6d9ehrg — the NHS entity that brings the hammer down on British patients by deciding what care they can and cannot have — they may well be right.  Certainly, however, the Administration does not want to talk about Medicare rationing as a viable cost control approach, and understandably does not want to compare IPAB to NICE.

So, where do we come out on cost control options for IPAB?  As discussed, anyone of these concepts has the potential to be politically explosive, and, thus, difficult to execute.  In fact, I must say that the idea of being asked to serve on a panel of citizens, charged with “controlling” Medicare’s costs, and being faced with the prospect of implementing cost control options such as those just described is somewhat unsettling.  Frankly, who would want this assignment?

To begin to wrap up this brief discussion, there is obviously much more that needs to be said about the IPAB.  My mission today, however, is only to scratch the surface of some of the more interesting aspects of this new panel.  To say that this concept is incredibly important and that its healthcare impact will be profound is to understate the obvious.   Frankly, it appears that IPAB will be the lynch pin of the entire cost control theory that is being advanced under HCR, and that is clearly why the concept has become so controversial.

And, to put it plainly, if IPAB does not work, it is hard to see how the broader cascade of ideas presented in HCR will hang together.  Just too much depending on these cost controls.  And if IPAB fails, then what?  Perhaps we go back to having Congress make the decisions on Medicare?  I don’t think so.  Congress won’t allow it…

That’s my point of view on IPAB, the Independent Payment Advisory Board, as a key aspect of HCR…and an acronym that you need to understand.

Related:
The 'S' Word in Healthcare Reform
http://blog.pharmexec.com/2011/12/19/the-s-word-in-healthcare-reform/#more-3348

JANUARY 2011 

Judge Declares Pro-Abortion ObamaCare Unconstitutional / Second Federal Judge Strikes Down ‘Obamacare’ Law in 26-State Lawsuit

A federal judge in Florida has issued a new ruling in what is the largest lawsuit filed against the Obamacare health care law. U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson says the individual mandate is unconstitutional and, therefore, the entire law is as well.

Leading pro-life groups have opposed the Obamacare law because it allows massive abortion funding and prompts concerns about rationing of health care.

The individual mandate is a portion of the law independent and conservative voters most strongly oppose because it requires Americans to purchase health insurance, that could fund abortions with taxpayer funds or premiums, whether they want to or not. The case the state of Florida and more than two dozen others made to Judge Vinson is that the individual mandate is unconstitutional and the Constitution does not allow Congress to regular financial inactivity.

“Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void,” the judge wrote. “This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications. At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled ‘The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.’”

“Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution,” the judge wrote. “This case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation. It is about the Constitutional role of the federal government.”

“Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with individual mandate,” he added.

The Obama administration says it will appeal the decision to the U.S. Appeals Court based in Atlanta, Georgia. Judge Vinson did not stop the implementation of the law pending the appeal which could take two years to reach the Supreme Court and result in a decision.

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who headed a similar case in Virginia, responded to the decision and told LifeNews.com in a statement:  “I am heartened by the fact that another federal judge has found that the individual mandate forcing citizens to buy private health insurance is unconstitutional.  The judge also found that the individual mandate could not be severed from the remainder of the law, so he declared the entire act invalid. Constitutional principles have scored another victory today.  Liberty has scored another victory today.”

David B. Kopel of the Independence Institute and a law professor at Denver University, said Vinson’s ruling is the right one.

Judge Vinson’s decision today vindicates the original meaning of the Constitution, and increases the already-high probability that the U.S. Supreme Court will choose to hear the legal challenges to the health control law. While some proponents of the federal law continue to claim that it has no constitutional problems, courts are recognizing that the bill was a usurpation of powers which were never granted to Congress,” he said.

Back in October, Judge Vinson issued a written ruling allowing the case to move forward and saying the court needs to issue a decision on the question of whether or not it is a violation of the Constitution to force Americans to purchase health care insurance.

“The individual mandate applies across the board. People have no choice and there is no way to avoid it,” he wrote. “Those who fall under the individual mandate either comply with it, or they are penalized. It is not based on an activity that they make the choice to undertake.”

“Of course, to say that something is “novel” and “unprecedented” does not necessarily mean that it is “unconstitutional” and “improper.” There may be a first time for anything. But, at this stage of the case, the plaintiffs have most definitely stated a plausible claim with respect to this cause of action,” he said.

During the hearing in December, David Rivkin, an attorney for the states, told Vinson, “The act would leave more constitutional damage in its wake than any other statute in our history.”

President Barack Obama’s administration countered that Americans should not be allowed to opt out of ObamaCare because every American requires medical care. They also claim the states do not have standing to file a lawsuit against ObamaCare and want the lawsuit thrown out and the case dismissed.

Other cases filed against the Obamacare health care law have seen mixed results.

Michigan District Judge George Caram Steeh in Detroit ruled in another case that the mandate to get insurance by 2014 and the penalties states face for not implementing ObamaCare fully are legal.

A third lawsuit filed against ObamaCare is pending in Virginia, where a federal judge ruled against the individual mandate but not against the rest of the Obamacare legislation. However, the lack of severability in the legislation likely makes it so if the individual mandate is declared invalid the entire law is likely invalid.

U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson became the first federal judge to strike down a portion of the law when he sided with Virginia in its lawsuit saying the individual mandate is unconstitutional.

That case is likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court and likely to be combined with the one in Florida and two others where federal judges have upheld the insurance requirement.

Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington joined Florida in the lawsuit.

Earlier this month, six additional states joined them: Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
[31 Jan 2011, Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/2011/01/31/judge-declares-pro-abortion-obamacare-unconstitutional/


Second Federal Judge Strikes Down ‘Obamacare’ Law in 26-State Lawsuit
A second federal judge has ruled that President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, which subsidizes abortions, is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson, a Reagan appointee, ruled that the law violates the Constitution by requiring Americans to purchase health insurance or face a penalty, a provision that is set to begin in 2014.

“I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate,” Vinson writes in his decision. “That is not to say, of course, that Congress is without power to address the problems and inequities in our health care system.”

Vison declares the entire law to be “void” because “the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable” from the law, and expresses regret for what he believes to be a necessary decision.

“This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications,” Vison writes. “At a time when there is virtually unanimous agreement that health care reform is needed in this country, it is hard to invalidate and strike down a statute titled ‘The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.’”

However, he added, “Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the Act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution.”

The decision was reached in response to a lawsuit against the law, also known as “Obamacare,” filed by the state of Florida, which has been joined by 25 other states.

Pro-lifers hailed the ruling as a victory for the right to life in the United States.

“Today’s historic ruling that Obamacare is unconstitutional comes as no surprise to those who have opposed the pro-abortion law from its inception. While all Americans are in need of quality and affordable health care, that need should not be valued over the lives of innocent preborn Americans,” said Kristan Hawkins, Executive Director of Students for Life and co-founder of the Stop the Abortion Mandate Coalition (STAM).

“Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was the most pro-abortion piece of legislation in American history, and it unconstitutionally mandated that all Americans purchase health care. Americans deserve more than this pro-abortion piece of legislation, and the Judge has upheld the law for Americans, and most especially the preborn,” she added.

The decision is the second federal court ruling against the act.  In December, Federal Judge Henry Hudson of the Eastern District Court in Richmond Viginia, ruled that the act is in violation of the Commerce Clause. Two other judges, however, have rejected lawsuits against the act.  Supporters say they expect it to be upheld as constitutional on appeal.

The Obama administration has indicated that they will appeal the decision. “We strongly disagree with the court’s ruling today and continue to believe - as other federal courts have found - that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional,” Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

The issue is expected eventually to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
[MIAMI, January 31, 2011, LifeSiteNews.com,  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/second-federal-judge-strikes-down-obamacare-law-in-27-state-lawsuit?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=8558451663-LifeSiteNews_com_US_Headlines01_31_2011&utm_medium=email

ObamaCare Repeal Vote Next Week, Bill to De-Fund Abortion Soon

ObamaCare Repeal Vote Next Week, Bill to De-Fund Abortion Soon
House Republicans will vote next week to repeal the ObamaCare law that allows abortion-funding and promotes rationing — drawing opposition from pro-life quarters.
Majority Leader-elect Eric Cantor announced today that the bill will be posted on the Internet on Monday night, the Rules Committee will meet Thursday to prepare it, and the rules for debate will be considered and receive a vote on Friday. Then, the vote will take place Wednesday, January 12.

“Obamacare is a job killer for businesses small and large, and the top priority for House Republicans is going to be to cut spending and grow the economy and jobs,” Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring said in a statement. “Further, ObamaCare failed to lower costs as the president promised that it would and does not allow people to keep the care they currently have if they like it. That is why the House will repeal it next week.”

Prior to today’s announcement, the new Republican chairman of the panel responsible for starting action on repealing the abortion-funding ObamaCare law says a vote will take place soon.

Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said yesterday that a vote on the repeal legislation and a companion bill to ensure there is no abortion funding under ObamaCare, will take place before President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address later this month.

The House convenes on Wednesday and Republicans are expected to move ahead quickly to hearings on the repeal legislation.

Upton said Republicans would be unified in support of the repeal measure and he counted on votes from the few Democrats who voted against ObamaCare when pro-abortion Speaker Nancy Pelosi controlled the House before voters replaced her with pro-life Speaker John Boehner.

After the repeal bill is passed, Upton said Republicans would work on dismantling ObamaCare piece by piece with bills unrelated to the abortion issue but also legislation that would implement a ban on any taxpayer funding of abortions under the law and protecting the conscience rights of medical professionals who don’t want to participate in abortions... [Full article -- http://www.lifenews.com/2011/01/03/obamacare-repeal-vote-bill-to-de-fund-abortion-coming-soon/ ; Ertelt, Washington, DC, LifeNews.com, 1/3/11]

Comment: The big problem with the "Obamacare" law was both its vagueness and leaving regulations and decision-making to unelected and unaccountable government entities. This is what sets the stage for a government takeover of healthcare. Thus, it is not surprising that the administration and Democrats reneged on the promise to drop this provision. Why bother with Congress or public discussion about health care decisions when a committee, department or government official  can just make its own rules. 

When you add this "end of life" planning to cuts in Medicaid and Medicare-not to mention the future dearth of MDs to care for the estimated 30 million new patients, we have a real problem.

And Elizabeth Wickham's comment are spot on. "end of life" planning is and never has been about getting the treatments you want (remember the push for "futile care" determinations in ethics committees, for example) but rather about economics and using resources for the more productive.
  It was not a mere coincidence that Oregon started Medicaid rationing before the assisted suicide law.
N. Valko, R.N.

Obama Returns to End-of-Life Plan That Caused Stir
When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.

The final version of the health care legislation, signed into law by President Obama in March, authorized Medicare coverage of yearly physical examinations, or wellness visits. The new rule says Medicare will cover “voluntary advance care planning,” to discuss end-of-life treatment, as part of the annual visit.

Under the rule, doctors can provide information to patients on how to prepare an “advance directive,” stating how aggressively they wish to be treated if they are so sick that they cannot make health care decisions for themselves.

While the new law does not mention advance care planning, the Obama administration has been able to achieve its policy goal through the regulation-writing process, a strategy that could become more prevalent in the next two years as the president deals with a strengthened Republican opposition in Congress.

In this case, the administration said research had shown the value of end-of-life planning.

“Advance care planning improves end-of-life care and patient and family satisfaction and reduces stress, anxiety and depression in surviving relatives,” the administration said in the preamble to the Medicare regulation, quoting research published this year in the British Medical Journal.

The administration also cited research by Dr. Stacy M. Fischer, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who found that “end-of-life discussions between doctor and patient help ensure that one gets the care one wants.” In this sense, Dr. Fischer said, such consultations “protect patient autonomy.”

Opponents said the Obama administration was bringing back a procedure that could be used to justify the premature withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment from people with severe illnesses and disabilities.

Section 1233 of the bill passed by the House in November 2009 — but not included in the final legislation — allowed Medicare to pay for consultations about advance care planning every five years. In contrast, the new rule allows annual discussions as part of the wellness visit.

Elizabeth D. Wickham, executive director of LifeTree, which describes itself as “a pro-life Christian educational ministry,” said she was concerned that end-of-life counseling would encourage patients to forgo or curtail care, thus hastening death.

“The infamous Section 1233 is still alive and kicking,” Ms. Wickham said. “Patients will lose the ability to control treatments at the end of life.”

Several Democratic members of Congress, led by Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, had urged the administration to cover end-of-life planning as a service offered under the Medicare wellness benefit. A national organization of hospice care providers made the same recommendation.

Mr. Blumenauer, the author of the original end-of-life proposal, praised the rule as “a step in the right direction.”

“It will give people more control over the care they receive,” Mr. Blumenauer said in an interview. “It means that doctors and patients can have these conversations in the normal course of business, as part of our health care routine, not as something put off until we are forced to do it.”

After learning of the administration’s decision, Mr. Blumenauer’s office celebrated “a quiet victory,” but urged supporters not to crow about it.

“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue. “This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”

Moreover, the e-mail said: “We would ask that you not broadcast this accomplishment out to any of your lists, even if they are ‘supporters’ — e-mails can too easily be forwarded.”

The e-mail continued: “Thus far, it seems that no press or blogs have discovered it, but we will be keeping a close watch and may be calling on you if we need a rapid, targeted response. The longer this goes unnoticed, the better our chances of keeping it.”

In the interview, Mr. Blumenauer said, “Lies can go viral if people use them for political purposes.”

The proposal for Medicare coverage of advance care planning was omitted from the final health care bill because of the uproar over unsubstantiated claims that it would encourage euthanasia.

Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, and Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, led the criticism in the summer of 2009. Ms. Palin said “Obama’s death panel” would decide who was worthy of health care. Mr. Boehner, who is in line to become speaker, said, “This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia.” Forced onto the defensive, Mr. Obama said that nothing in the bill would “pull the plug on grandma.”

A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation suggests that the idea of death panels persists. In the September poll, 30 percent of Americans 65 and older said the new health care law allowed a government panel to make decisions about end-of-life care for people on Medicare. The law has no such provision.

The new policy is included in a huge Medicare regulation setting payment rates for thousands of services including arthroscopy, mastectomy and X-rays.

The rule was issued by Dr. Donald M. Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and a longtime advocate for better end-of-life care.

“Using unwanted procedures in terminal illness is a form of assault,” Dr. Berwick has said. “In economic terms, it is waste. Several techniques, including advance directives and involvement of patients and families in decision-making, have been shown to reduce inappropriate care at the end of life, leading to both lower cost and more humane care.”

Ellen B. Griffith, a spokeswoman for the Medicare agency, said, “The final health care reform law has no provision for voluntary advance care planning.” But Ms. Griffith added, under the new rule, such planning “may be included as an element in both the first and subsequent annual wellness visits, providing an opportunity to periodically review and update the beneficiary’s wishes and preferences for his or her medical care.”

Mr. Blumenauer and Mr. Rockefeller said that advance directives would help doctors and nurses provide care in keeping with patients’ wishes.

“Early advance care planning is important because a person’s ability to make decisions may diminish over time, and he or she may suddenly lose the capability to participate in health care decisions,” the lawmakers said in a letter to Dr. Berwick in August.

In a recent study of 3,700 people near the end of life, Dr. Maria J. Silveira of the University of Michigan found that many had “treatable, life-threatening conditions” but lacked decision-making capacity in their final days. With the new Medicare coverage, doctors can learn a patient’s wishes before a crisis occurs.

For example, Dr. Silveira said, she might ask a person with heart disease, “If you have another heart attack and your heart stops beating, would you want us to try to restart it?” A patient dying of emphysema might be asked, “Do you want to go on a breathing machine for the rest of your life?” And, she said, a patient with incurable cancer might be asked, “When the time comes, do you want us to use technology to try and delay your death?”  
[December 25, 2010, Robert Pear, Washington, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/us/politics/26death.html?_r=2&hp=&pagewanted=print ; PharmFacts E-News Update -- 30 Dec 2010 ]

Comment: If the word "voluntary" makes this provision benign, why do we have all the problems with "living wills" and other advance directives, "futile care" decisions, cases like Terri Schiavo's which enforce death decisions even without a person's "voluntary" decision, etc.? And why would this provision (originally designed with the former Hemlock Society) need to be kept quiet as Sen. Blumenauer wanted?
   The truth is that people are relentlessly being told by ethicists and the media that "life support" (antibiotics, tubes of any kind, food and water, etc.) are bad when you are seriously debilitated and will force you to stay alive longer than you want. Assisted suicide in increasingly being sold as something we all may eventually want when forgoing "life support" isn't enough.
   Naturally, targeting older people for " voluntary end of life counseling" every year by doctors who face cuts in treating these older patients will make it easier for the government "experts" to ration care and promote the "right to die" mentality. N. Valko R.N.

“Voluntary” Death Panels May Forgo Assisted Suicide Talk

The debate over the death panels that appear to have been added back to the ObamaCare law continues and the complexity of federal regulations is causing considerable confusion.

Early reports indicated the death panels, the annual discussions authorized under ObamaCare at taxpayer expense where physicians confer with patients about end-of-life decisions, indicated they could possible include a discussion of assisted suicide in the three states where one may be obtained.

But a key word — making the discussions voluntary — appears to have eliminated that possibility as does the fact that the discussions will center on advanced directives, which can’t include assisted suicides.

“These things can become very complicated–and finding anything in federal law and regulations is increasingly difficult,” pro-life bioethics attorney Wesley J. Smith writes today after conducting additional research on the death panels. Regarding them allowing assisted suicides, he says, “The answer appears to be: Probably not, at least, not yet.”

“The regulation pays for discussions regarding advance care planning,” he said. “But the regulation in question deals with advance care planning  in the context of advance directives, and assisted suicide … can’t be dispensed pursuant to advance directives.”

Page 1493 of CMS-1603-FC reads:

Voluntary advance care planning means, for purposes of this section, verbal or written information regarding the following areas:

(i) An individual’s ability to prepare an advance directive in the case where an injury or illness causes the individual to be unable to make health care decisions.

(ii) whether or not the physician is willing to follow the individual’s wishes as expressed in an advance directive.

“Note that the discussions are to involve what can be put in an advance directive and whether the doctor will abide.  Neither Oregon nor Washington law permits assisted suicide via advance directive–which only are invoked if a patient is incompetent, and so should never (if the law is followed) ever be administered to someone receiving surrogate decision making,” Smith explains. “Montana is unclear what it does and does not allow.”

“Hence, since no physician can legally engage in physician prescribed death per patient instruction in an advance directive, it seems to me that at least for now, assisted suicide discussions are not explicitly covered under the new Medicare regulation,” he adds.

Meanwhile, one top Democrat quoted in a story today in Politico says the death panels also won’t promote rationing or assisted suicide in part because they are voluntary.

“When people recognize that they will now have coverage for voluntary advance-care-planning, they may actually question the motives of those who told them health care reform would involve ‘death panels,’” the Senate Democratic aide said.

But Betsy McCaughey, a Republican health policy expert and the former lieutenant governor of New York, who came up with the phrase “death panels” says that’s misleading.

“Doctors should always be paid for the time they spend counseling patients, including about the tough choices they are making toward the end of their lives. But the government shouldn’t be scripting what doctors should say to patients. The government isn’t a trusted educator, it has a stake in reducing the care provided to elderly patients,” McCaughey told Politico, saying she expects the Obama administration to try to move it further.

“When end-of-life counseling first came up, doctors’ quality ratings were going to be determined in part by the percentage of patients who have a living will and those who follow it up,” she said. “If they make advance-care planning a protocol … it’s not voluntary, despite the use of the word.“

While the decision to have the end-of-life discussion is up to the patient, the regulations do provide financial incentives for doctors to have them as one of the measures used in the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative allows them to receive bonuses for having the discussions. [28 Dec 2010,Ertelt, LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/2010/12/28/voluntary-death-panels-may-forgo-assisted-suicide-talk/?pr=1 ; Valko, 29 Dec 2010]


Berwick Sets Up Death Panels By Fiat By Jeffrey Lord - American Spectator
Now, with Americans absorbed in a festive holiday and ignoring Washington momentarily, the Obama administration has found a way to achieve its death panel goal anyway, as the Times now admits. Congressional supporters of the new policy, though pleased, have kept quiet. They fear provoking another furor like the one in 2009 when Republicans seized on the idea of end-of-life counseling to argue that the Democrats’ bill would allow the government to cut off care for the critically ill.

It inserts the federal government in end-of-life planning, precisely as Palin said was Obama’s intention. Not, as was true of its original legislative formulation, every five years. But annually. On Christmas day 2010, the Times reports the death panel idea will become a Medicare rule on January 1, 2011.

Part of the furor launched over Palin’s remarks was the discovery by millions of frightened Americans that Obama health care bureaucrats admired the British health care system
Dr. Berwick personally issued the Christmas Death Panel Rule. He stated, “I am romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. … The NHS is one of the astounding human endeavors of modern times.”

The Heritage Foundation has accurately noted that the real issue is the Obama administration’s clear intent to govern by executive fiat now that it has lost control of the House and, effectively, the Senate as well. Government-by-Obama fiat will be the subject of a furious struggle in the new Congress. ...the Berwick rule can be undone—if the Congress orders it undone.

Premium power grab! Feds Take Control of Insurance Prices - WorldNetDaily
New Sebelius ‘regulation’ called ‘one more way’ to drive companies out of market. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her staff are implementing a new 136-page federal regulation which, for the first time ever, gives the federal government the power to set health insurance premium prices, a regulatory role traditionally reserved for the states, health policy experts are telling WND.

The new price control rule centralizes regulation of insurance policy premiums – and coverage – in Washington, D.C., under the aegis of Sebelius, a longtime radical abortion advocate and instrumental player in President Obama’s cabinet for the Obamacare agenda

Virginia Attorney General: If We Lose, Government ‘Will Be Able To Order’ People To Buy Anything
Ken Cuccinelli told CNSNews.com that the federal government will be able to “order” individuals to purchase any product or service if the individual mandate in health care law is determined to be constitutional by the Supreme Court.

ABC Poll Finds Health Care Law Is Massively Unpopular, Network Offers Scant Coverage

Obama Admin Working to Rescind Conscience Rights on Abortion

The Obama administration is still working to overturn conscience rights for medical professionals on abortion that were put in place at the tail end of the Bush administration.

In 2008, the Bush administration issued a rule that prohibited recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and health care aides who refuse to take part in medical procedures to which they have religious or moral objections, such as abortion.

The rule implemented existing conscience protection laws that ensure medical professionals cannot be denied employment because they do not want to assist in abortions.

New information about the state of those protections and efforts to repeal them comes from legal papers the administration filed in a case the state of Connecticut launched against the conscience protections.

In a document filed in federal court in November, Obama administration attorneys admitted that the administration wants to finalize a rescission of the conscience rules but has been delayed because of other business — likely due to the HHS working on implementing the provisions of the ObamaCare law.

HHS “hope[d] to have an internal draft final rule prepared in the near future, but that the schedule is necessarily tentative given the possibility of unforeseen delays and the need to devote time and resources to other agency priorities,” the November legal paper said.

Responding to the paper, the federal court asked for more information about the delay.

The Obama administration filed another legal paper December 1 stating “HHS still cannot be certain of a date for completing the rulemaking” but added “HHS expects to have a final rule published in the Federal Register within sixty to ninety days – i.e., as early as January 31, 2011, and no later than March 1, 2011.”

Obama officials asked the court to not mandate a time by which the rescission is made and said they hope to complete the rescission of the conscience rights prior to the court issuing a decision related to the Bush rules in the Connecticut challenge.

The Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life legal group, points out that the papers make it clear the Obama administration intends to repeal the conscience protections on abortion, citing language saying the administration would notify the court “when the final rule regarding the proposed rescission is published.”

ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman said the Obama administration “wants to dismantle” the conscience protections “leaving little defense for the regulation and for health care workers.”

“Medical professionals should not be punished for holding to their beliefs, and they should not be forced to perform abortions against their conscience,” he told LifeNews.com. “Those pursuing this lawsuit, including organizations such as Planned Parenthood, would like nothing more than to deny health care workers the only means that exists to defend their federally protected right to opt out of abortions.”

ADF has been defending the rights of a nurse who was forced to assist in an abortion and is she is now seeking to join the lawsuit to oppose Connecticut’s efforts to overturn the Bush rules.

As LifeNews.com reported in November, Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo lost a federal court ruling saying she doesn’t have the right to sue the hospital that forced her to participate in an abortion.

Now, the Alliance Defense Fund has filed a motion to intervene in State of Connecticut v. United States of America.

ADF is currently involved in a lawsuit in New York state court to defend Cenzon-DeCarlo’s conscience rights under state law, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit upheld the dismissal of her federal lawsuit, leaving only an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as the means to defend her rights protected under federal law.

That investigation relies upon the conscience regulations implemented by former President George W. Bush that direct the department to conduct such investigations. If Connecticut is successful or the Obama administration overturns the rules, “this case may cause Mrs. DeCarlo to again be illegally compelled to assist in abortions by her federally funded employer due to the removal of all her protective measures,” ADF legal papers say.

“Moreover, that Regulation has helped empower Defendant HHS’ Office of Civil Rights to actually and presently be investigating that violation on her behalf, explicitly telling Mrs. DeCarlo that the investigation is being pursued at least in part under the Implementing Regulation. Yet in this case, Plaintiffs seek to invalidate that Regulation and Defendants have worked with Plaintiffs to stay the case based on their intent to rescind the Regulation,” the papers add.

ADF attorneys, working together with the Christian Legal Society’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, are simultaneously attempting to intervene in the Connecticut case on behalf of several pro-life medical associations.

The judge cleared the motions from his calendar for now but determined that they can be considered once the case, which is currently on hold, moves forward.

Although federal law has long forbidden discrimination against health care professionals who refuse to perform abortions or provide referrals for them, the regulation required institutions that get federal funding to certify their compliance with laws protecting conscience rights.

It also promoted education within the medical community regarding their rights and provided an avenue of recourse in the event of discrimination through the Office of Civil Rights within HHS.

At the end of February, the Obama administration announced it began “reviewing” the regulations implementing conscience laws, the first step toward rescinding the rule altogether.

In 2009, Obama told students at Notre Dame he wanted to find common ground on abortion and used the conscience clause as an example. but he came under criticism from pro-life lawmakers who said he was working to remove the protections.
[14 Dec 2010, Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/2010/12/14/nat-6929/


Judge Rules Pro-Abortion ObamaCare Law Unconstitutional

A federal judge issued a ruling today on a Virginia lawsuit against the ObamaCare health care law that allows abortion funding and he said the program is unconstitutional in part.

The ruling makes the district court the first federal court in the nation to strike down a portion of the ObamaCare law and it goes against rulings other courts have issued striking down other lawsuits.

The key issue in the complaint the state of Virginia filed is that the individual mandate in the law, requiring Americans to purchase health insurance (which may very well fund abortions) is unconstitutional and a violation of the power Congress has to regulate interstate commerce.

Judge Henry Hudson issued a 42-page opinion writing that the individual mandate exceeds Congress’ authority, saying it is “neither within the letter nor the spirit of the Constitution.”

He said his survey of case law “yielded no reported decisions from any federal appellate courts extending the Commerce Clause or General Welfare Clause to encompass regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, not withstanding its effect on interstate commerce or role in a global regulatory scheme.”

Judge Hudson declined the request for an injunction stopping ObamaCare from going into effect any further while the case continues because the mandate hasn’t taken effect yet.  He noted the Supreme Court will become the final arbiter of the case.

Ken Cuccinelli, the pro-life Attorney General of Virginia, brought the case and issued a quick comment on the decision before having fully reviewed it.

“Today, a federal judge in Richmond ruled the individual mandate of the federal health care law unconstitutional,” he said. “In other words – we won.”

“This won’t be the final round, as this will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court, but today is a critical milestone in the protection of the Constitution,” Cuccinelli added. “I am still fully digesting the court’s ruling” he said, but called it “good news.”

Hudson did not invalidate the full law but the individual mandate, its most important portion, and “directly-dependent provisions which make specific reference” to it.

The Obama administration is expected to appeal the ruling to the Fourth Circuit, which hears cases from Virginia and four additional states.

The lawsuit, which is similar to the one a Michigan judge and a Florida judge held hearings on recently, received its own hearing in October.

During the hearing, District Judge Henry Hudson also acknowledged the district court legal battle is but a precursor to a larger fight at the Supreme Court.

“As you well know, this is only one brief stop on the way to the United States Supreme Court,” Hudson said.

The Virginia challenge, like the arguments presented in the other cases, says the federal government does not have the authority to require Americans to purchase health care and punish them for not doing so.

“The Supreme Court has never allowed inactivity to be regulated as commerce,” said Virginia Solicitor General E. Duncan Getchell. He called the Obama administration’s position “strained and extreme” saying “no one can opt out.”

Getchell told Hudson the legislation is “unprecedented, unlimited and unsupportable in any serious regime of delegated, enumerated powers.

The Obama administration argues the decision not to buy insurance is itself an active process that Congress can regulate.

But Judge Hudson appeared to question how those without insurance must pay and appeared to side with the argument states are making that it is a punitive fine, while the federal government says it is a tax that it is entitled to levy. This is of particular importance and concern to the states because Obama had said it would not function as a tax.

“Why did the members of Congress and the President deny to everyone in America it was a tax?” Hudson asked Obama’s lawyer. “They denied it’s a tax. The President did. Was he trying to deceive the people?”

Hudson, who issued today’s ruling, was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush in 2002.

The two cases previously decided by district courts are headed to appeals with the Michigan case going to the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati and a Virginia case heading to the Fourth Circuit in Richmond.

Oral arguments in the most high-profile case in Florida, the lawsuit filed by 20 states, are slated for December 16.

Every major pro-life organization has released a legal analysis of the ObamaCare bill saying it lacks sufficient provisions to stop abortion funding. They have also had to work to stop the Obama administration from funding abortions in three states through the high risk health insurance pools.
[13 Dec 2010, Ertelt | Richmond, VA | LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/2010/12/13/state-5735/

As Elections Draw Near, How the Health Care Law Affects Abortion Funding in the USA

As November 2nd approaches, the Population Research Institute has released a factual video about Obamacare, and how it affects abortion funding in the United States. The video is groundbreaking for a number of reasons.

The video, entitled Obamacare: The Facts On Abortion -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW1DuhBRoUw -- relies heavily on legal research done by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), research that details the many ways that Obamacare will lead to expanded abortion coverage across the nation. Since NRLC's research is some of the most comprehensive and reliable in the country, the accuracy and detail of PRI's video would have been impossible without it. We believe that, at the time of this writing, we are the first group to use this information specifically to fuel a YouTube video on this most important of issues.

Not only this, but PRI uses YouTube's annotation system to insert a series of digital “footnotes” into the video. This means that PRI's assertions about Obamacare are backed up by credible links, which are clickable and embedded right in the video itself.

“With this video, we're trying to transmit information about life issues in a way that isn't really being done a lot yet,” says Colin Mason, PRI's Director of Media Production and one of the video's creators. “Our video is fully linked into our social networking sites, and all of its facts are backed up right in the video itself. We hope that people will use this video (and others like it) as a tool to help them explain these issues to others, using solid evidence and sound rhetoric.”  [25 October 2010, PRI Staff, Weekly Briefing, Vol. 12 / No. 30]  



Does Obamacare Fund Abortion? Let Us Count the Ways...

by Steven W. Mosher

When Obamacare was signed into law in March, the President assured Americans that it does not, in any way, shape, or form, fund elective abortions. He even signed an executive order to this effect. The only problem with Obama's claims, which are being repeated by politicians like Harry Reid and partisan groups like Democrats for Life of America, is that they are not true.

The only real abortion restriction in Obamacare was in fact removed before the President signed the bill into law. This was the so-called “Stupak-Pitts Amendment”, named after Democrat Bart Stupak and Republican Joe Pitts, that was inserted into the House version of the bill. This amendment applied the Hyde Amendment abortion restrictions, which forbids certain Health and Human Services (HHS) funds from being used to pay for abortions, to Obamacare.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment was necessary because the original bill did not include any blanket restriction on using taxpayer funds for abortion. Neither did the original Hyde Amendment suffice (despite what Harry Reid has claimed), since Obamacare creates lots of new pathways for sending money directly to various health care projects, bypassing HHS and the Hyde Amendment restrictions altogether. (We will talk about these in a minute.)

The problem was that the Senate version of the bill contained no abortion restrictions. But instead of putting pressure on the Senate Democrats to add the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to their version of the bill, the Obama administration chose instead to place enormous pressure on the House to take this language out of their bill. In the end, nearly all the House Democrats, including the small “pro-life” contingent, did as they were told. As a result, there are no restrictions against abortion in the bill itself.

In exchange, the President with great fanfare signed an executive order that supposedly amends the health care legislation to preclude abortion funding. The problem is that it does no such thing, because it can't: An executive order is not law and cannot amend legislation. The courts will throw out the President's piece of paper as soon as it is challenged. There is no way that Obama, who is a Harvard-trained lawyer, doesn't know this. His political allies certainly do. The head of Planned Parenthood, an organization that stands to make a lot of money off Obamacare, dismissed the executive order as nothing more than a “symbolic gesture.”

So what is all this presidential posturing really about? Was it merely an effort to provide some political cover for “pro-life” Democrats who voted for Obamacare despite its abortion funding? If so, it hasn't worked, to judge from the polls, which currently show most of them going down to defeat by large margins on November 2nd.

Most voters understand that, since there is no blanket restriction on abortion funding in the health care legislation, they will wind up paying for abortions, at least in some circumstances. Let me give you three of the Obamacare provisions that will, in my opinion, inevitably lead to abortion funding:

Money for so-called “Community Health Centers”: Many of these Community Health Centers will be run by Planned Parenthood and other groups that see abortion as an essential service and, without abortion-restricting language in the bill, money that goes to these centers will be used to pay for abortions.

Money for federal insurance plans: Obamacare will provide two or more state-sponsored insurance plans. According to the bill, only one of these plans actually needs to have restrictions on abortion—meaning that federal dollars will almost definitely be paying for abortions in the other state plan. And even this restriction is limited, and will have to be renewed every year.

Money for “temporary high-risk pools”: Obamacare provides 5 billion dollars for “temporary high-risk pools” that will cover people with pre-existing conditions until the actual health care exchanges kick in 2014. This money goes straight to the states and is administered by them. Without abortion restrictions, the states are free to use this money to fund abortions if they feel like it. And in fact, some of them tried to do just that … until complaints by National Right to Life forced HHS to promise it would actually enforce Obama's executive order. This will last only as long as it takes to file a court challenge, however.

Vice President Biden has been going around the country saying that Obamacare is wonderful, but that it is simply “too complicated” to explain to the rubes out in the hustings. We disagree on many grounds, but most of all because it will force us—and all Americans—to pay for the execution of our unborn brothers and sisters.
RELATED: Obamacare: The Facts On Abortion -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW1DuhBRoUw
[20 Oct 2010, PRI Weekly Briefing, Vol. 12 / No. 29, www.pop.org, Steven W. Mosher is President of the Population Research Institute]

U.S. Judge Delivers Setback to ObamaCare Foes

A federal judge in Detroit has delivered a setback to opponents of the national health care reform law passed in March, ruling that the individual insurance mandate and other aspects are constitutional.

U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh ruled Thursday that Congress has the authority to mandate that individuals carry health insurance by 2014 in the Affordable Care Act.

Steeh said the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution allows Congress to not only regulate economic activity, but also the decisions of individuals that impact a “broader regulatory scheme.”

Robert Muise, senior lead counsel for the Ann Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center, which filed the suit on behalf of four individuals in March, said the ruling was “troubling.”

He told LifeSiteNews.com Thursday that Steeh “essentially ruled that the commerce clause authority is not limited to just economic activity, but that Congress can also regulate decisions related to economic activity.”

However, the judge cited two U.S. Supreme Court cases which broadly expanded the power of Congress to regulate economic activity as key precedent for the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

Steeh invoked the New Deal era case of Wickard v. Filburn (1942), which substantially broadened the authority of Congress to regulate under the Commerce Clause. The high court agreed with the federal government that Roscoe Filburn’s decision to grow excess wheat for himself would affect interstate commerce, because the farmer would not be forced to buy extra wheat under a New Deal regulatory scheme designed to increase wheat prices during the Great Depression.

He also referred to Gonzales v. Raich (2005) in which the high court upheld Congress’s efforts to fight marijuana consumption on the basis that the “Commerce Clause affords Congress broad power to regulate even purely local matters that have substantial economic effects.”

But Muise disagreed with Steeh’s conclusions, saying that under his reading of the commerce clause “there is virtually no limit to what Congress can regulate.”

“Our founding fathers created a federal government with limited enumerated powers. If the commerce clause can be read so broadly, then that whole fundamental concept of our constitutional republic no longer exists,” said Muise.

The case was the first lawsuit filed against the national health care law, President Barack Obama’s signature legislation, in the United States.

Steeh, however, did recognize that the plaintiffs had legal standing to challenge the Affordable Care Act – a critical victory for the Thomas More Law Center, which allows them to appeal the case on its merits.

He said the plaintiff’s claim of present and future economic injury was “entirely reasonable” as they would have to start saving today in order to buy more than $8,000 in insurance per year, starting in 2014.

Additionally, Steeh denied the U.S. Justice Department’s claim that the Anti-Injunction Act prevented the plaintiffs from requesting an injunction on the law since the facts of the case “have nothing to do with the assessment or collection of taxes.”
“The case is set up nicely for an appeal, which we intend to do,” said Muise.

Thomas More Law Center plans to appeal Steeh’s decision to the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Twenty other state attorneys general have filed a separate lawsuit which is pending in Florida.

The Attorney General of Virginia has also filed a challenge to the health care law, which is pending in a federal court in Richmond.

Legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act are expected to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Judge Steeh’s decision (Case No. 10-CV-11156) can be read here -- http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/News/Docs/09714485866.pdf
[7 Octo 2010, Peter J. Smith, DETROIT, Michigan, http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/oct/10100715.html]

Federal Judge Henry Hudson Ruled that Virginia's Lawsuit, Filed by Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Challenging the Constitutionality of "Obamacare", Can Proceed
The Judge denied the motion to dismiss filed by USDOJ on behalf of HHS. Among his other reasons, the judge cited Eagle Forum's victory in the VAWA case, U.S. v. Morrison (2000), in which the Supreme Court held that Congress' power to regulate activities that "affect" interstate commerce, is limited to activities that are themselves economic in nature. A non-economic activity may not be regulated under the commerce clause, no matter how much it "affects" interstate commerce.

Second, Missouri voters approved the Health Care Freedom Act by 71% of the vote. Proposition C prohibits the government from forcing citizens to purchase health insurance, which was a rebuke of Obama and his administration. It's a loud victory to overturn the unconstitutional Obamacare passed by Congress in March.

"The citizens of the Show-Me State don't want Washington involved in their health care decisions," said State Sen. Jane Cunningham, one of the sponsors of the legislation that put Proposition C on the ballot. These are reasonable victories for true health care freedom in America. [6 Aug 2010, EF News & Notes]

Judge OKs Lawsuit Against Pro-Abortion Health Care, GOP Hopes to Stop Funding
A federal judge ruled today that the lawsuit the state of Virginia and several others filed against the pro-abortion health care law passed in March can go forward. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are pushing a plan to cut off funding for the health care scheme in case the lawsuit or repeal bids fail.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson issued a decision today saying the states can move forward with their lawsuit against the health care law, which allows massive abortion funding.

"While this case raises a host of complex constitutional issues, all seem to distill to the single question of whether or not Congress has the power to regulate -- and tax -- a citizen's decision not to participate in interstate commerce," Hudson wrote. "Given the presence of some authority arguably supporting the theory underlying each side's position, this court cannot conclude at this stage that the complaint fails to state a cause of action."

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who is pro-life, filed a lawsuit immediately after President Barack Obama signed the bill into law.

The Department of Health and Human Services, led by pro-abortion Kathleen Sebelius, filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit but Judge Hudson's decision denies that motion.

Meanwhile, while Republicans may not be able to repeal the pro-abortion health care law next year -- because President Barack Obama would veto such a bill doing so, they are hoping to deny the administration the funds needed to implement it. They are now working on such a message and getting it out to candidates on the campaign trail. [August 9, 2010, LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Update, Washington, DC]



Obama Officials Won't Apply Abortion Funding Limits to Full Health Care Program
Although the Obama administration promised it will limit federal taxpayer funding of abortions in the new high risk health insurance programs created under the ObamaCare law President Barack Obama signed into law, officials have said the limits are temporary and apply only to the new program.

As LifeNews.com reported today, the Obama administration appears to have bowed to pressure from pro-life groups that discovered it had authorized abortion funding in three states under the new high risk health insurance programs.

White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle offered further explanation of the new regulation on the official White House blog.

There she admitted that, "The program’s restriction on abortion coverage is not a precedent for other programs or policies given the unique, temporary nature of the program and the population it serves."

Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, responded in an email to LifeNews.com.

“Without blinking, the Obama Administration had approved high-risk pool plans submitted by at least three states that would have funded virtually all abortions – until NRLC raised the alarms starting on July 13," he said.

“This entire episode demonstrates what National Right to Life said in March – there is no language in the new health care law, and no language in Obama’s politically contrived March 24 executive order, that effectively prevents federal subsidies for abortion on demand,” Johnson added. [August 9, 2010, LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Update, Washington, DC]



Opposition to Obama's Pro-Abortion Health Care Law Hits New High in Poll
Opposition to the pro-abortion health care bill President Barack Obama signed into law has reached new heights, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll. The results come after a pro-life group exposed the way in which the new law would fund abortions in high risk insurance polls.

The Obama administration eventually backed down after the National Right to Life Committee exposed the funding in three states and it promised no funding would occur in the polls the new law created.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds 57 percent of likely voters say the recently-passed health care law will be bad for the country. Thirty-two percent say the health care plan will be good for the United States.

Prior to this survey, belief that the plan is good for the country ranged from 34% to 41%, while those who predict it will be bad for the country range from 49% to 54%.

"That’s the highest level of pessimism measured since regular tracking began following Congress' passage of the law in late March," Rasmussen noted. "Voter pessimism towards the new national health care bill has reached an all-time high."

Fifty-nine percent of all voters now favor repeal of the health care bill compared to 38 percent who oppose repealing it.

These findings include 45% who strongly favor repeal and 28 percent who strongly oppose it. Support for repeal has ranged from 52% to 63%, while opposition has ranged from 32% to 42%. [August 9, 2010, LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Update, Washington, DC]




Congressman Files New Pro-Life Bill to Cut All Federal Funding for Abortions
Congressman Chris Smith officially filed is new legislation today that would compile all of the annual provisions that prevent federal funding of abortions into one piece of legislation. The beauty of the bill lies in its ability to make what are annual battles to stop abortion funding permanent federal law.

When it comes to taxpayer funding of abortions from the federal government, pro-life advocates have to fight several battles annually in Congress to ensure abortions are not funded in programs ranging from HHS and USAID to health care and the District of Columbia.

Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, the chairman of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, is behind the new No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act designed to establish a consistent government-wide prohibition on abortion funding.

Two leading pro-life groups praised the official introduction of the legislation, which likely won't ever enjoy a debate and vote while pro-abortion Speaker Nancy Pelosi runs the House of Representatives.

Family Research Council Action senior vice president Tom McClusky told LifeNews.com that with passage of a health care law that will fund and subsidize abortion, and with efforts by pro-abortion senators to open up military bases to abortion, legislation to enact a government-wide abortion funding ban is needed.

"In the last year, we have seen President Obama and pro-abortion congressional leaders make repeated attempts to eviscerate the long-agreed line on federal funding of abortion. They began by enacting the abortion funding health care law and are now advancing an abortion agenda that includes turning our military hospitals into abortion facilities," he said. [August 9, 2010, LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Update, Washington, DC]
 

Retirements by Baby-Boomer Doctors, Nurses Could Strain Overhaul / Health-Care Retirements Looming /
Doctors Face Medicare Pay Cuts

Since the passage of the health-care law in March, much has been said about the coming swarm of millions of retiring baby boomers and the strain they will put on the nation's health-care system.

That's only half the problem. Overlooked in the conversation is a particular group of boomers: doctors and nurses who are itching to call it quits. Health-care economists and other experts say retirements in that group over the next 10 to 15 years will greatly weaken the health-care workforce and leave many Americans who are newly insured under the new legislation without much hope of finding a doctor or nurse.

Nearly 40 percent of doctors are 55 or older, according to the Center for Workforce Studies of the Association of American Medical Colleges. Included in that group are doctors whose specialties will be the pillars of providing care in 2014, when the overhaul kicks in; family medicine and general practitioners (37 percent); general surgeons (42 percent); pediatrics (33 percent), and internal medicine and pediatrics (35 percent).

About a third of the much larger nursing workforce is 50 or older, and about 55 percent expressed an intention to retire in the next 10 years, according to a Nursing Management Aging Workforce Survey by the Bernard Hodes Group. New registered nurses are flowing from colleges, but not enough to replace the number planning to leave the profession.

"Moving into the future, we see a very large shortage of nurses, about 300,000," said Peter Buerhaus, a nurse and health-care economist and a professor at Vanderbilt University. "That number does not account for the demand created by reform. That's a knockout number. It knocks the system down. It stops it."

According to the census, baby boomers include the 66 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964.

 In an article for the Journal of the American Medical Association, Buerhaus and colleagues Douglas Staiger and David Auerbach predicted that there will be at least 100,000 fewer doctors in the workplace than the 1.1 million the federal government projects will be needed in 2020 under the health-care overhaul.

The authors analyzed the American Medical Association Masterfile survey of the nation's physicians and found that it overestimated the number of active older physicians who are baby boomers.

Using the monthly Current Population Survey of the census bureau, the writers found that older doctors aren't nearly as active as those who are 54 and younger, and that their lack of activity must be taken into account when determining the available level of care after the overhaul has been implemented.

"There's a much more rapid retirement of physicians," Buerhaus said. "What does this retirement mean? This will mean at least 100,000 fewer doctors in the workplace in 2020."

He said the article does not estimate the change in demand or the level of recruitment by medical colleges, which is being beefed up significantly under the health-care law.

Lori Heim, president of the American Association of Family Practitioners, said someone might soon have to replace her. "My age group is looking at when we are going to retire," said Heim, who is 54. "More physicians are changing their practice, doing things that have less calls. They want administrative roles."

Heim said her statement is based on an impression. "I haven't seen any numbers on this." But, she said, her association is among the many that for years have pointed out the shortage of primary care doctors and nurses to the White House and Congress.

Although the association supported the health-care overhaul, it thinks the law does not go far enough to address the workforce shortages projected for the coming decade.

Reform will add demand on top of shortages already projected, and as a result the health-care workforce might not be attractive.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 75 percent of nurses said in a survey they think the shortage "presents a major problem for the quality of their work life, the quality of patient care, and the amount of time that nurses can spend with patients."

In a survey by New York University's Christine Kovner, 13 percent of newly registered nurses changed principal jobs after a year, and 37 percent said they were ready to change jobs. A separate report found that the turnover rate for registered nurses was 13 percent. A University of Pennsylvania study called for 30,000 extra nurses per year to be graduated to meet health-care needs.

"I think the big story is . . . the future of nursing is dominated by aging baby-boomer nurses who are going to retire, and we are looking at massive shortages," Buerhaus said. "Others are not picking up the retirements of physicians. There's just not going to be as many doctors as needed out there."
[14June2010,Washington Post, Darryl Fears, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/13/AR2010061304096.html?hpid=topnews ; N Valko RN, 14June10]

Doctors Face 21 Percent Cut in Medicare Payments
Some at AMA meeting protest cuts in Medicare payments by sending their lab coats to lawmakers.

Doctors with Medicare patients will start seeing a 21 percent pay cut this week after Congress failed to defer the cuts by two more years.

The Senate had until June 1 to avert the cuts. It is not expected to vote by Tuesday, when the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services' temporary hold on Medicare claims expires.

Some members of the American Medical Association signed white lab coats instead of a petition to voice their displeasure on Sunday at the group's annual meetings in Chicago. The coats will be delivered to lawmakers in Washington on Friday, a spokeswoman said.

"The Senate's failure to act before June 1 made the 21 percent cut the law of the land," AMA President J. James Rohack said in a statement. "Physicians will start seeing a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments this week that will hurt seniors' health care as physicians are forced to make practice changes to keep their practice doors open" ...  [14 June 2010, Ed O'Keefe, Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/13/AR2010061304348.html?sid=ST2010061304429]

Legal Translation: Newest Health "Care" Proposal Pushes Abortion, No Protection for Major Pro-Life Doctors' Groups

To better inform you about the President's newest healthcare proposal, here is accurate info from 2 very reliable sources (and note: tax funded abortion is very much a part of the "new" proposal):

Source 1:
Since the proposal is designed to make changes to the Senate bill, the omission of any reference to abortion means that the Senate language would govern under the President's proposal. According to the Washington Post, "The president's plan does leave intact language relating to abortion already in the Senate bill."

Groups should be aware that this means the President is adopting the Senate approach which would allow subsidies for abortion coverage and even directly fund abortion through grants to Community Health Centers. Today, National Right to Life pointed out that by increasing funding for Community Health Center's to $11 billion without ensuring funds cannot be used to pay for abortion, the President's proposal actually expands pro-life concerns. Additional concerns including conscience protection issues and back door abortion mandates also remain under the President's proposal to the same extent as they existed in the Senate bill.

This week, as the President hosts a bipartisan health care summit, it is noteworthy that the pro-life Stupak amendment is a key area in which there has been strong bipartisan cooperation, yet it was omitted from the President's proposal.

Source 2
Of course, the issue of utmost importance to pro-lifers is whether the President's September statement holds true: "Under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions."

False! Under the administration's "new" plan, this bill would be the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade--with a big chunk of the proposal tagged directly for groups like Planned Parenthood.

Despite public opposition, President Obama reverted back to the Senate's language, which would force taxpayers to fund abortions even if their state opts-out of the coverage. Using a phony argument that the money would be segregated, the government would still draw from taxpayer pools to cover a procedure that Americans overwhelmingly reject.

The President missed his opportunity to adopt the most popular piece of reform, Rep. Bart Stupak's (D-Mich.) outright ban on government-funded abortion.
To make matters worse, the White House is upping the ante on the Senate's abortion bailout, asking for $11 billion in "community health centers," which can easily be redirected to groups like Planned Parenthood.

The President's package also includes Sen. Barbara Mikulski's (D-Md.) amendment, which would allow the administration to define abortions as "preventative health services" and force private insurers to cover them. As it's currently written, the $6 billion in grants for health co-ops doesn't include a single abortion restriction--nor does the Indian Health Services program. With the health care summit just days away, the onus is on Republicans. They can expose the President's credibility gap on abortion and kill the bill--or sit silent and risk the momentum that got them there.
[23Feb10, AAPLOG]

Newly-Unveiled Obama Health Bill Proposal Even More Pro-Abortion According to NRLC: White House set to ram health overhaul through Senate as "budget" reconciliation measure
A new health care bill proposed by President Obama Monday threatens to expand abortion even more drastically than the health care bills stymied in Congress over the past several months, says the National Right to Life Committee [and other sources].

The White House is threatening to ram the proposal through the Senate on a 51-vote majority using a tactic known as "budget reconciliation".  The process circumvents the need for a filibuster-proof 60-vote majority [per Senate rules put in place by a Democrat majority] by placing the health care overhaul under the heading of a "budget" bill.

"Any member of Congress who votes for the final legislation proposed by President Obama will be voting for direct federal funding of elective abortion through Community Health Centers, and also an array of other pro-abortion federal subsidies and mandates," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson in a statement Monday. [PFLI note: Extra funding for chemical abortions and Planned Parenthood are also included in the Obama plan.]


Johnson pointed out that the earlier Senate bill was itself "the most expansively pro-abortion bill ever brought to the floor of either house of Congress since Roe v. Wade."  That bill was brought to a screeching halt in January, thanks to the unexpected victory of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown, who handed Senate Republicans the one vote needed to maintain a filibuster.

Among the president's proposed "targeted set of changes to" the Senate bill, Johnson said, none "diminish any of the sweeping pro-abortion problems in the Senate bill, and he actually proposes to increase the funds that would be available to directly subsidize abortion procedures (through Community Health Centers) and to subsidize private health insurance that covers abortion (through the premium-subsidy tax credits program)."

"If all of the President's changes were made," said Johnson, "the resulting legislation would allow direct federal funding of abortion on demand through Community Health Centers, would institute federal subsidies for private health plans that cover abortion on demand (including some federally administered plans), and would authorize federal mandates that would require even non-subsidized private plans to cover elective abortion."

(A letter from NRLC to lawmakers detailing the multiple pro-abortion components of the Senate bill is available here.)

Meanwhile, despite Obama's bipartisan health care summit set for broadcast Thursday, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer indicated Monday that Democrats were ultimately willing to push the bill through reconciliation with zero Republican help.

While the White House has "made no determinations on which process to move forward with," he said, "Our proposal is designed to give ourselves maximum flexibility to ensure that we can get an up or down vote if the opposition decides to take the extraordinary step of filibustering health reform."
 
Republicans, and even some Democrats, are skeptical that the Thursday summit will amount to anything more than political theatre.

“I’m not certain what the White House is up to, but it appears they are trying to meld a bill together without, again, any input from Republicans," said Republican Georgia Rep. Tom Price, according to Politico.  

Price was not invited to the health care talks at Blair House on Thursday. "It doesn’t sound like bipartisanship. ... I’m afraid it’s just another photo op.”
[22Feb10, Kathleen Gilbert, DC, www.LifeSiteNews.com, PharmFacts E-News Update, 23Feb10] 

Commentary: Disapproval Does Not Equal Racism
In a rare response to public opinion, politicians around the country are holding town hall meetings to discuss the issues facing Congress and our country, especially health care reform. The politicians—and the media—seem surprised at the anger and discontent they are encountering at these meetings, however.

Citizens who have lost their jobs are lashing out at policies that seem to reward bad business decisions in the auto industry and the financial world. Middle class Americans who oppose a health care plan that is an affront to their moral beliefs are accused of fear-mongering and hysteria.

In  recent local editorials, writers have proposed another reason for the discontent, however: displaced racism. Several writers have blamed the groundswell of angry citizens who feel that no one is listening on the fact that these Americans don’t like President Obama because he is Black.

Unfortunately, that same attitude is a popular refrain in our country. We who disagree with policy are racists who don’t understand policy.

President Jimmy Carter even entered the racism arena following U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s ill-advised outburst during President Obama’s speech on health care. “I think it’s based on racism,” Carter said when questioned at a town hall at his presidential center in Atlanta.

Now, I admit that I am one of those “one issue” people who are denigrated in the media. I am a pro-life advocate who believes that everything we do, all policies we enact are impacted by how we treat our most vulnerable citizens.

If there is no sanctity of life for our unborn and our elderly, how can we be shocked when that lack of concern for life plays out in our streets and our policies?

I also whole-heartedly agree that our current health care system needs reform—but again, that reform should encompass the sanctity of life.

The truly frustrating point of this, however, is that while I am termed “racist” for not agreeing with Obama’s abortion itinerary, that abortion agenda is the most racist, destructive force in our society.

Make no mistake about it, abortion is impacting our country in ways few people care to consider.

Yes, 51.7 million babies have been aborted since 1970, but what that means to our society is that 30.6 % of our entire under-40 population has been destroyed.

Almost one-third of our future, our tax-payers, our voters have been killed.

Congress subsidized Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, $326 million last year to help accomplish this. According to Cybercast News Service, 62.5% of Planned Parenthood’s abortion facilities are located in predominately Black neighborhoods.

Our President has been very outspoken from the beginning about his pro-abortion plans for our country, yet the current impact of abortion on the African-American community has been devastating.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2004 there were 161 abortions per 1,000 live births in the Caucasian community.

For Hispanics, that number was 211 per 1,000 births.

In the African American community, there were an overwhelming 472 abortions per 1,000 live births.

While comprising only about 13% of our total population, African American women have almost 38% of all abortions.

That is 1,227 black babies aborted every day.

In Alabama, the numbers are even more staggering. African American women still comprise about 13% of the population, but in 2006, they had 55.8% of all abortions.

This is a national horror, yet no one dare raise the issue of racism or genocide. 

The only issue people want to discuss is that a national health care plan should pay for MORE abortions, and Medicaid should pay for more abortions for poor, minority women.

To oppose that plan—or to support a plan that states medical professionals should not be forced to participate in abortions against their moral beliefs, or that “end of life counseling” is not a morally acceptable part of a health care plan—is “displaced racism.”

Alabama has received a lot of bad press in recent months for our high premature birth and infant mortality rates, especially among our minority population.

A lot of reasons are given for these numbers, but a recent report published by the American Physicians and Surgeons links the disproportionately high rate of preterm births among Black babies to the high rate of abortion among Black women.

According to that study, African-American women are at three times higher risk for having a premature birth, and four times higher risk for giving birth extremely prematurely.

In six separate studies, evidence showed that women who had aborted a child had a significant risk of premature birth. Since the abortion rate in the African-American community is 4.3 time higher than non-blacks, abortion was cited as the likely cause for many of these premature births.

 The statistics prove that abortion is systematically destroying the African-American community, yet there is no voice of outrage. When U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was recently interviewed in New York Times Magazine, she discussed her surprise when the Court upheld the Hyde Amendment (which banned federal funding for abortion) in 1980.

She said, “Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth, and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding of abortion.”

 Was anyone offended by the implications of that statement? Was there media righteous indignation at the idea that Roe V Wade was supposed to solve the problem of “growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of”?

Were there cries of racism from our political leaders at the idea that federally funded abortions were intended to reduce the minority, poor population?

Did our President stand up and denounce Justice Ginsburg?  Not hardly. As they say, the silence is deafening. And THAT is racism.
[Lorie Mullins, Pregnancy Center Director, September 2009]

NEW! 

BREAKING: Abortion Mandate Resurfacing!
"We're in the final stretch, and this is when your voice counts the most.
Let's keep up the pressure and STOP the Abortion Mandate in Health Care!"
 
U.S. House Rep and both U.S. Senators (see below, or www.congress.org) are under great pressure to pass this health destruction bill.

It may be on the floor Sunday, 21Feb, or by Monday, 22Feb10. 

You may wish to contact your members of Congress to tell them:

"Do not support any health care reform bill that does not include the Stupak language to block government funding of abortion!"
 
--> REPRESENTATIVES:
     http://stoptheabortionmandate.com/representatives  
 
--> SENATORS:
   http://stoptheabortionmandate.com/senators  

February 18, 2010 10:20:00 PM
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly is now
reporting that the final health care proposal is
expected to be released by the White House "as early
as Feb 21" -- just three days from today.

Abortion proponents are aggressively assembling a coalition to ram through a health care bill that is fully expected to mandate abortion coverage and government funding of abortion.

With a final version expected out as early as Sunday, it's clear that abortion advocates know they're on the verge of having the votes they need to force this bill through in a way that is filibuster-proof:
"The most likely way forward is for the House to clear
the Senate's health care bill (HR 3590) and for the
Senate to pass a package of changes to it, using the
 filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process. That
set of changes would incorporate the deals struck
with the House, which would then send the new package
to the White House. Obama would first sign the
original Senate bill, then the 'corrections' package.
The last measure signed into law would be the one
that dictates the final shape of the overhaul."

The House passed the Stupak language that
would save lives and protect taxpayers from funding
abortion -- but it was completely stripped from the
Senate version.

With intense pressure mounting for the House to just roll over and pass the Senate version, millions of lives are at stake!

Obama has refused to address the issue of abortion -- and every indication is that he will keep abortion funding as a centerpiece of his proposal.

Stop the Abortion Mandate Coalition
 http://www.StopTheAbortionMandate.com

Barbara Boxer Confirms Nelson's Health Care Deal Does NOT Stop Abortion Funding

A buyer’s chance to return a vehicle under the California lemon law applies for 30 days. Too bad for Senator Ben Nelson (D, Nebraska) the same does not apply to legislative deals cut in Washington D.C. with California’s pro-abortion Senator Barbara Boxer (D, California) when she talks to reporters 31 days later.

As most of America knows, back on December 19th Senator Nelson became the 60th vote needed to advance the Senate’s version of President Obama’s health care reform legislation – his self-described signature domestic policy initiative.

In announcing his compromise, Senator Nelson’s press release boasted:

    “In negotiations with Senate leaders Nelson won new protections addressing abortion that are more thorough than the Stupak language included in the House health care bill.
    “Nelson’s provisions: (1) ensure that no public funds will be used for abortion; (2) mandate that every state provide an insurance plan option that does not cover abortion; and (3) gives each state the right to pass a law barring insurance coverage for abortion within state borders.
    “‘My values and principles have required me to fight hard to prevent tax dollars from being used to subsidize abortions,’ Senator Nelson said. ‘I believe we have accomplished that goal. I also fought hard to protect the right of states to regulate the kind of insurance that is offered, and to provide health insurance options in every state that do not provide coverage for abortion.
    “’I know these limits on abortion are hard for some people to accept, and I respect those who disagree, but I would not have voted for this bill without them.’”

Joining Senator Harry Reid (D, Nevada) at the negotiating table representing abortion activists was Senator Boxer who oddly and immediately took heat from her friends in the “women’s groups” for agreeing to the compromise.

Senator Boxer has been mysteriously quiet since the deal was struck with exception to her remarks on the Senate floor prior to the vote when she implored her colleagues with what now probably deserved a Golden Globe this past weekend – “Please don't single out women…What have women done to deserve this? … Why have such a lack of respect for them?”

However, the silence was broken on January 18 when Boxer, according to McClatchy News Service, “said it’s only an ‘accounting procedure’ that will do nothing to restrict [abortion] coverage.”

Senator Nelson made several errors in his negotiations that have been well reported during the past month. At some point he is going to need to go back to the salesman who sold him on what he was agreeing to would go further than the Stupak-Pitts language in the House version of the bill.

The Stupak-Pitts language was not new federal policy. It merely preserved what is known as the Hyde amendment, passed in 1977, which prohibits federal funding for abortion except in the case of rape, incest, or life of the mother. The state ‘opt-out’ language in the Senate version agreed to by Senator Nelson is smoke and mirrors.

What the Senate passed on Christmas Eve allows the federal government to fund abortions. It is disingenuous for Senator Nelson to think funding for abortions would be segregated. Regardless of any potential ‘opt-out’, the pool of money is there to stay and Senator Boxer is now confirming as such.

158 abortions occur every hour which means 3792 every day. Referencing the data contained in a 2007 Guttmacher Policy Review study would translate to an additional 548 abortions performed each day under the White House endorsed Nelson-Boxer-Reid compromise Senate language – a 15% increase in abortions in our country.

Congressman Bart Stupak (D, MI-01), the champion of the House language, immediately knew the same day Nelson cut his deal that “A review of the Senate language indicates a dramatic shift in federal policy that would allow the federal government to subsidize insurance policies with abortion coverage.”

Was Senator Nelson misled during the negotiations or just out-maneuvered?

Regardless, about now, he is probably wishing he also bought the extended warranty with his deal because he’s going to need it to continue explaining his compromise to the voters of Nebraska. And back in Washington, as the White House and a select group in the House and Senate continue hammering out the differences in their versions of the health care legislation, pro-life Americans must pray for a result like the number one industry in Senator Harry Reid’s state – where the House wins.
[19Jan2010, Matt Smith,  http://www.lifenews.com/nat5892.html
LifeNews.com Note: Matt Smith is a consultant in Washington D.C. and former Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison under President George W. Bush.]

AARP -- Opposed to the Values of Most Seniors? Commentary

AARP’s recent support for Obamacare demonstrates once again the fact that it does not represent the core values of most retired persons. Muted but straight out hostility might be a better description.

In the years ahead, our aging population— those over 50 and therefore eligible for AARP membership—will increase by 30%. In the face of this, AARP leadership is supporting Democrat “healthcare reform.”

This proposes to cut 500 billion from the Medicare and Medicare Advantage Programs. But it doesn’t support adding a single doctor or nurse to these programs.

Obama and his supporters in Congress have publicly promised that these cuts won’t lead to any reduction in benefits, rationing or reduced services.

As the saying goes, if you believe this I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you.

This is a clear, direct attack on a federal program that has been crucial to the care of senior citizens in the US.

One would think that AARP, which claims to represent those seniors, would raise an alarm. Quite the contrary, this organization has publicly thanked one of the bill’s authors, Representative Henry Waxman, for the bill. Both Obama and AARP have publicly stated that there willbe no cut in benefits, but this is simply impossible and untrue.

For example, Mr.Obama has stated he will cut 177 billion dollars from the Medicare Advantage Program.

This is a supplemental insurance option for seniors that is highly popular. A recent survey showed 97% of those in this program are happy with the care it provides.

Yet the proposed program, which AARP supports, would make deep cuts in this, forcing seniors to either forgo treatment or supplement it even more from their own pockets.

Recently, there has been much publicity about “death panels.” This is an attack upon senior citizens or those who are ill, yet there has been no word of complaint from AARP.

Incidentally, AARP is publicly in favor of gun control, amnesty for illegal aliens and retaining the death tax. Now tell me, do a great majority of seniors agree with these three positions?

AARP tells us that they are not endorsing Obamacare, but they’re running
ads on FoxNews.com telling people to call their congressmen to get those who oppose healthcare reform (Obamacare) out of the way.

One ad shows an ambulance, partly blocked by cars getting in the way, hinting that by “opposing reform now” we are killing people.

One doubts if most seniors will buy the lie that AARP is not aggressively forsocialized medicine, for it has long been for socializing everything.

Recall its support for the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 which did become law. When seniors found out about this outrageous bill, and that they were paying for a new government bonanza, their protests were so loud that Congress took the unheard step of repealing it the following year.

Let us also remember that AARP bitterly opposed efforts to reform Social
Security under Bush four years ago, but now strangely, when Obama offers huge cuts in actual coverage in Medicare and Medicare Advantage, suddenly we hear nothing from them about the bill.

This lack of response, we assume, is a tacit endorsement considering the almost hysterical response four years ago. Nor did we hear any response from AARP when President Bill Clinton proposed increasing taxes on Social Security benefits.

Instead of opposing this hardship on seniors, AARP remained silent. In fact, it urged approval of a federal budget which would have increased these taxes.

It is about time that taxpayers, especially senior citizens, realized that AARP does not represent the best interest of the people it supposedly serves.

Rather consistently and almost without exception, it has enthusiastically supported those forces pushing for more and more taxes, and more and more government control.

Seniors would be well advised to support other groups that really do havetheir interests at heart. [Willke, MD, LIfe Issues Today, October 2009, Life Issues Connector]

Analysis: Abortion Funding in Senate Health-Care Bill Stuck Between Reid and a Hard Place
The leader of the Senate, Harry Reid (D-Nev.), has now found himself in the most unenviable of positions: having to pass a health-care bill that must satisfy both pro-life and pro-abortion legislators who have the power to stall or kill the Senate's legislation.

The successful inclusion of the pro-life Pitts-Stupak amendment to the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962), the House version of health-care reform that passed late Saturday, has suddenly proved a game-changer in the current debate over health-care reform. As essential as the bipartisan pro-life amendment was to getting health-care reform out of the House, it now has ramifications for the Senate; the whole survival of the Democratic version of health-care reform could turn on the issue of abortion.

On Saturday, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) proved that he and his pro-life Democrats could successfully make the House leadership - Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, both strongly pro-abortion - yield to their pro-life demands. Despite having been summoned for a personal meeting with President Barack Obama and Speaker Pelosi, the resilient Stupak maintained his promise to block the health-care reform bill from coming to a vote until the House was permitted to vote on his amendment. The Pitts-Stupak amendment blocks all streams of federal revenue from subsidizing health-insurance plans that provide abortions, including the public option.

Alternative "compromise" amendments, such as the amendment proposed by Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-Ind.), which would have removed "federal funding for abortion" in H.R. 3962 by hiring contractors to issue checks for abortion, proved futile in breaking apart Stupak's coalition. The measure was vehemently denounced by the National Right to Life Committee as a pro-abortion "money laundering scheme," and was flatly rejected by the US Catholic Bishops, which has put enormous pressure on Democrats to pass only the Pitts-Stupak amendment.

With Stupak unwilling to bow to pressure, Pelosi - desperate to pass the bill before House members went on recess starting Veteran's Day - agreed to allow the House to vote on the amendment, which was added into the bill by a comfortable margin of 240-194.

Pro-abortion legislators, however, are now determined that the Senate not pass its own version of the Pitts-Stupak amendment to their version of health-care reform. Since the bills before the House and the Senate differ greatly, the separate bills will have to be coalesced into one final bill in a conference between representatives of both chambers. Pro-abortion legislators are counting on the Pitts-Stupak amendment - if similar language does not exist in the Senate version - being thrown out in the final "compromise" legislation.

This single bill can no longer be amended and would then go before both chambers for a final vote.

Both Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America have vowed to combat the bill if the Pitts-Stupak language remains. The abortion industry, which has struggled with maintaining enough profit to keep its declining number of clinics operating, has a huge financial stake in health-care reform. Statistics from the Alan Guttmacher Institute have shown that government subsidies for abortion would sharply increase the number of abortions among Medicaid-eligible women by as much as 20 - 35 percent. The financial incentive to have an abortion - which has an average cost of $413, but can cost up to $1800 - increases when the procedure amounts to a co-pay, with insurance companies reimbursing abortionists the rest of the cost.

Pro-abortion members of Pelosi's caucus have informed her that they are prepared to vote against the final version of the bill, if it contains the pro-life language. That could jeopardize the ultimate passage of the House bill, where the loss of three votes is the difference between life or death.

Yet the situation for the health-care bill in the Senate is much more precarious, and for the Democratic Majority Leader, failing to placate both sides of the divide over abortion could kill the bill.

Reid identifies himself as a pro-life Democrat in the Senate, who opposes legal abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother. The Senate Democrat, however, leads a largely pro-abortion caucus in the 100 member Senate that has 39 Republicans, two independents, and needs 60 votes in order to invoke cloture on debate and proceed to a vote.

Already the chances of passage in the Senate are complicated by the fact that while the House wants a public health-insurance option, the Senate does not. Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, has pledged to filibuster the bill if it includes a public option.

However, Stupak's victory has emboldened pro-life Democrats in the Senate, and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) now poses another filibuster threat to Reid. Nelson told Politico that he wants airtight abortion language as well and if language as restrictive as Stupak's amendment were not included in the bill "you could be sure I would vote against it."

Two other Democratic Senators that may join Nelson are Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.

Like the House bill before the Stupak-Pitts amendment, pro-life objections to the Senate version are centered around the creation of new funding channels that fall outside the scope of the Hyde Amendment (which prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services from disbursing funds that would go to pay for abortions).
 
A spokesman for Reid also told Politico that the Nevada Senator wants to "ensure that no federal funds are used for abortion," but stopped short of saying how the Senator would accomplish that.

For Reid, offending social conservatives renders his chances of retaining his seat in 2010 much more difficult. On the other hand, Pitts-Stupak language in the Senate version would likely fail to gain enough support to pass among pro-abortion Senate Democrats.

In any event, the pro-life position has emerged as a decisive issue in the passage of the Democratic proposal for health-care reform, perhaps even more decisive and divisive than the battle over the public option. The fate of the bill may ultimately depend on whether the Democratic leadership can successfully buck the adage that "a man cannot serve two masters" and convince one side or the other to forgo core principles for the sake of health-care reform.
[10Nov09, Peter J. Smith, D.C., www.LifeSiteNews.com] 

The AMA Can Now Defeat a Berlin Wall of Medicine

On the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, physicians of the AMA House of Delegates took a stand for freedom in medicine – and likely in America. As Washington politicians push a government and corporate takeover of medicine, physician representatives from around the nation stood up and gave marching orders to the AMA leadership. 

Marching orders that they tell Congress and the American People what is acceptable, what is unacceptable and what is necessary for health system reform.  It is now up to the AMA Board of Trustees to follow the will 17% of America’s doctors represented in the AMA House. 

If they don’t do so, they will forever damage the credibility of the AMA as a trusted organization that stands up for patients and their doctors. It will then be necessary for America to turn to representatives of the 83% of doctors that are not members of the AMA – a number that could grow.

Just as the Berlin Wall separated individuals living under state control from those living under freedom, the Washington takeover will stand as a corporate and government barrier between patients and doctors.

Congressional plans will also substantially increase the cost of medical insurance, force more people into Medicaid which is taken by too few doctors, limit the choice of health financing products and punish doctors who provide the necessary care patients expect to receive. 

After paying their premiums or trusting a government insurance option, they will find that their doctor has been placed on a budget. 

They will find that their doctor will be punished financially and professionally if they go over the budget set by Congress and insurance companies. 

They will also be punished if they provide care that is not approved by committees.  These punishments will break the most critical bond in the patient-physician relationship – trust in your doctor.

But there is hope that the AMA will now stand up and refuse to allow that Berlin Wall of medicine to be built. 

The directive from the AMA House to the Board was clear:  actively and publicly advocate for patients based on specific AMA policies that emphasize freedom.

They will now be required to tell Americans how so many of the bad proposals will penalize doctors who care for patients and oppose these provisions in legislation.  For instance, Congressional proposals passed last week in HR 3962 state that the Secretary of Health and Human Services will be granted broad powers to penalize doctors who don’t report private medical data to the public. 

Such public reporting has been shown to lead doctors to avoid the sickest patients since they would get a bad government report card. The AMA will be required to publicly state how doctors should not be punished for going over budget - or for higher “utilization” in bureaucratic parlance. 

Doctors should not be penalized for ignoring committee created “performance” measures that have actually been shown to hurt some of their patients.  Patients should not be denied the right to go to the best hospital or facility in town only for the reason that a group of doctors happen to own it.  Pay of doctors providing vital cancer, heart, brain, spine, joint and other medical care should not be cut simply to give more money to other specialists in primary care.

More importantly, they are now required to advocate for tort reform as a common sense way to cut defensive medicine costs. 

They must also actively and publicly tell the American people a sad and hidden truth: the government denies their rights to privately contract with any doctor they want.  For instance patients are now denied the right to pay an extra $25 or so above Medicare rates simply to see a doctor who won’t make them wait for an hour to see a nurse for ten minutes and the doctor for three minutes. 

They are denied the right to leave a Medicare system that may not cover all services and doctors they want without losing all their hard earned Medicare benefits to pay that doctor.

In fact this will get worse under HR 3962 as a patient that sees any doctor who leaves Medicare for ethical or other reasons will not be allowed reimbursement (to the patient) for hospitalization, tests or treatments from Medicare! 

The new AMA marching orders state that they must support publicly and actively the right to privately contract between patients and doctors to overcome this Congressional denial of patients rights.  Sadly, an amendment to do this was defeated by a Democratic party-line vote hours prior to the final vote on HR 3962.

As Americans remember how freedom was brought to Berlin when the wall was brought down by the quiet efforts of Ronald Reagan, let us resolve not to allow that wall to be built now between doctors and patients. 

The AMA leadership has the chance to stand up now for patient freedom and against government intrusion that penalizes doctors who provide care in the best interest of their patients. 

If they do this, they will be known for fighting for patients, the medical profession and will secure the trust of the American people in the AMA name. 

If they don’t, then Americans must place them with all the other special interests who most value their seat at the table with other politicians. They will know the AMA only as an arm of the state and guardian of the Medical Berlin Wall the state has built. [emphasis added]

Dr. McKalip is a private practice brain and spine surgeon in St. Petersburg Florida, member of the Board of the Florida Medical Association and Immediate Past President of the Florida Neurosurgical Society. 10 November 2009

NEW!

MASA Urges AMA to Recall House Health Bill (HR 3962) Endorsement

The Medical Association of the State of Alabama (MASA) is urging the American Medical Association (AMA) to recall its endorsement of HR 3962, the health care reform bill in the U.S. House of Representatives released last week and being pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a vote soon, possibly as early as this weekend. 

“While there are aspects of the health care system that need reforming, HR 3962, with its expansion of government’s role in health care, is not the answer,” MASA President Dr. Jorge Alsip, a Mobile emergency physician, said.

Dr. Alsip and several other MASA physician leaders will travel to an AMA meeting in Houston, Tex., this weekend to urge the national physicians’ association to reverse course on their endorsement of HR 3962.  MASA believes the bill, with its massive overhaul of the health care system, will irreparably damage physicians’ ability to treat patients and patients’ ability to seek quality medical care. 

“HR 3962, proposed as a ‘fix’ for the system’s woes, is the equivalent of using a hatchet when a scalpel is called for,” Dr. Alsip said.  “While we believe some reforms are needed, HR 3962 will do more harm than good for patients.”

MASA’s main objection to the bill is its creation of a new government-run health insurance system, in addition to the lack of meaningful medical liability reform measures and the lack of a fix for the fatally flawed formula used to calculate reimbursements for physicians’ treatment of Medicare patients.

“While President Obama may claim doctors support the bill, neither he nor the AMA speak for Alabama physicians on HR 3962,” Dr. Alsip said.  “We have held town hall meetings across the state and the overwhelming majority of Alabama physicians oppose the approach Congress is taking to health care reform.  As a physician, I wouldn’t prescribe a treatment regimen that would endanger my patient.  HR 3962 won’t make the health care system better; it will make it worse.”
[MASA ROTUNDA, News Release, 6 Nov09, www.masalink.org;
Niko Corley, Montgomery, AL]

11,000 on Abortion Mandate Webcast Warned against Phony Compromises in Healthcare Bill
Over 11,000 pro-lifers tuned in last night to an emergency webcast by StopTheAbortionMandate.com, where national pro-life leaders briefed listeners on the extent of the threat to human life posed by the House health care bill.

According to coordinator David Bereit, although news of the webcast went out only 13 hours before it began, 11,243 people joined in.  Speakers included Rep. Chris Smith, Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life, Kristen Day of Democrats for Life, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee, Deirdre McQuade of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' pro-life secretariat, and Christian Medical and Dental Associations CEO Dr. David Stevens.

"You know as well as I, ladies and gentlemen, that killing human babies by abortion is not health care," said Congressman Smith of New Jersey, the chairman of the House's pro-life caucus.  The congressman noted that prohibiting federal funding of abortion has been the status quo "across the board," including for the Medicaid Program, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, SCHIP, the Department of Defense, and even the Veterans Health Administration.

Smith warned that, included in the language of the "manager's amendment" that will be introduced to try to bridge divides in order to pass the bill, "will almost certainly be a new phony compromise that does nothing but put window dressing on the deadly abortion funding already in the bill."

The leaders once again made clear the bottom line regarding the 1,990-page bill's treatment of abortion funding.  The Capps amendment, proposed as a "compromise" measure in July by the radically pro-abortion Rep. Lois Capps, does three key things: it allows abortion-covering insurance plans to receive government subsidies, establishes a government-run insurance plan that must cover abortion, and requires all U.S. regions to offer at least one abortion-covering health plan.

"They are wanting to make it as complicated as possible," said Americans United for Life President and CEO Charmaine Yoest, "in order to obscure the fact that there is a very simple truth underneath it all: this is a huge expansion in abortion funding and coverage by the federal government, which changes the way that we've approached abortion policy in this country for the last 30 years."

Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, whose efforts at a pro-life amendment have posed a significant threat to the bill's abortion expansion, earned praise from the webcast speakers.  Stupak has threatened to arrange like-minded Democrats to block passage of the bill's rule - which must be passed before the bill can be considered by the House - unless Democrat leadership allows a vote by the full House on a Hyde-like amendment for the measure.  Kristin Day, the president of Democrats for Life, called Stupak a "hero." 

"Pelosi has made it very clear so far that she has no intention whatsoever of allowing a vote on the Stupak/Pitts amendment," said Rep. Smith, referring to the pro-life amendment.  "She wants to keep this issue quiet, and silence the pro-life members of congress who oppose government funding for abortion."

Douglas Johnson, the legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, focused on the public option and the "powerful legal formula" in the Capps amendment that protects the public option's coverage of abortion.  "Will the Obama administration use that sweeping authority if Congress provides it?  You bet they will," he said.  "And will they use federal funds to pay for those abortions?  Why, certainly they will.  Because the federal agency can spend nothing other than federal funds."

"The claim which has been disseminated by pro-abortion lawmakers and by some of their apologists in the media, that this federal program would pay for abortions but with private funds - although accepted and repeated with a straight face by some gullible journalists - is absurd on its face," he added.  "It's a political hoax."

The leaders noted that the pro-life lawmakers have a formidable opponent in House Speaker Pelosi, who, according to Rep. Smith, has "no intention whatsoever" of allowing the House an opportunity to vote on the pro-life amendment.   "Indeed, Speaker Pelosi believes that if the full House were allowed to vote on the Stupak/Pitts amendment, it would pass, and so she is determined not to allow that vote," noted Johnson.

Deirdre McQuade from the USCCB affirmed that the U.S bishops are "responding clearly and vigorously" to the health care bill.  The USCCB recently began an all-out campaign against the abortion-laden bill, and asked all American U.S. prelates to join the effort to stop the abortion mandate earlier this month.

Dr. David Stevens, CEO of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, said that the bill's conscience language protecting doctors objecting to abortion was weak, and liable to be scrapped when the House and Senate bills undergo a merging process.  "I don't think it's any time to relax or celebrate," Stevens said.

In addition, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America noted President Obama's ambiguity on the abortion mandate.  Though claiming that he is personally opposed to federal funding for abortion, Wright reports that Obama "has been personally and aggressively lobbying members of Congress to vote for the current bills," all of which include such funding.

Ultimately, according to the speakers, the pro-life effort against the rules vote - due to occur either today or Wednesday - is the "do or die" moment.

"I believe we can and I believe we will win, but we have to out-think and outwork the abortionists as never before," said Smith.  "Clearly, this is the big one." [Kathleen Gilbert, WASHINGTON, D.C., November 3, 2009, www.LifeSiteNews.com]

Surgeon General Koop Letter Against Abortion Funding Closes Harry Reid's Office

In a bizarre chain of events that appears to put Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's staff in a bad light, Reid's office was closed for 45 minutes as Capitol Hill police scanned a letter that ended up coming from pro-life former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.

Capitol Police temporarily shut down Reid's office on Wednesday after his staffers alerted them to what they thought was a suspicious letter.

The letter raised eyebrows in Reid's office because it was hand-delivered without a stamp and with Koop's name listed in the upper left-hand corner without an address.

Roll Cal magazine, which covers Congress, reached Koop at his home Wednesday afternoon and he confirmed he sent the letter.

Koop said he wrote a few “beautifully typed” pages about his views on the government-run health care bills pending in Congress.

That the letter would cause Reid's staff to create a panic is “nonsense,” he said.

“I wasn't aware that sending a hand-delivered letter was an offense,” he told Roll Call. “I did it over a weekend. I don't have a lot of secretarial help and I'm 93.”

Koop also told the Capitol Hill newspaper that the letter asked Reid to ensure that no funds be used to pay for abortions in the health care program and that it include a provision to ensure doctors and medical students are not required to perform abortions or refer for them.

“All you need to know is that I sent it,” he said, with Roll Call reporting that a postal clerk alerted Reid's office to the letter and placed it in an outgoing mailbox.
[by Steven Ertelt, November 4, 2009, Washington, DC, www.LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/nat5616.html] 

NEW! 

LSN NewsBytes - US Health Care Reform

* Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of LifeSiteNews.com. They are presented only for your information.

Compiled by Steve Jalsevac   www.lifesitenews.com  21 November 2009

Obamacare: Senate Version is Assisted Suicide Friendly! - Wesley J. Smith
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/11/19/obamacare-senate-version-is-assisted-suicide-friendly/


CBO: By 2019, Taxpayers Will Pay $196 Billion A Year for Obamacare, But 24 Million People Will Remain Uninsured
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/57454

The $100 Million Vote: Harry Reid Woos Skeptical Democrats
On page 432 of the Senate bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for "certain states recovering from a major disaster." ABC News has been told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HealthCare/sen-harry-reid-woes-skeptical-democrats-health-care/story?id=9124461&nwltr=politics_featureMore

The Onward March Of ObamaCare - Joe Ellis
No group has done more to promote the public funding of abortions than the Catholic bishops of America. That might well surprise them, flushed as they are with their success in making a deal in the House in which they supported passage of the Pelosi bill in exchange for an amendment barring public funding of abortions. But when you make a deal with people whose strategic goals are diametrically opposed to yours, you must be careful that what you get is not a temporary tactical retreat that can be reversed at any time, while what you have given is a huge and lasting strategic advantage.

The bishops actually endorsed the bill, and the slim margin of its victory in the House might not have been there without them. Henry Waxman and Pelosi had simply pocketed their priceless gain, and if they could betray the bishops, they would. But the bishops should not have needed to be told this. What none of them seemed able to grasp was that the strategic goal toward which Reid and Pelosi were relentlessly advancing was something that would inevitably remove all of the protections they thought they had negotiated for themselves.

The subsidized public option that Pelosi and Reid want would inevitably drive private insurers out of business, leaving the government as sole provider of health care, including abortions. When that happens government will also control drug prices, as well as conditions of work and pay for doctors.

The archetype of the suicidal short-sighted deal will always be Neville Chamberlain’s Munich pact with Hitler. What Chamberlain got was temporary and unreliable: a promise of no more territorial demands that could be reneged on at any time, from a man who already had a track record of reneging on promises. What he gave in return was a huge and permanent boost to Nazi strength and momentum: Appeasing a hungry monster never works: it grabs what it is offered, and immediately wants more, and more. ...one day the bishops will wake up to find that all their muscle-flexing had only led to the very result that they had most feared.

The bishops, the insurers, the doctors, and the drug companies all need to grasp the rather simple fact that their own strategic goals are fundamentally in conflict with those of Pelosi and Reid, and that the public option is at the center of that conflict. For all of them, making deals that allow the public option bandwagon to gather speed is sheer folly. The only way in which they can genuinely protect their interests is by stopping it, now.
http://frontpagemag.com/2009/11/18/the-onward-march-of-obamacare-by-john-ellis/

At least in Oz, Universal Health Cover is Good Sense, Not Socialism
An Australian journalist explains why her country’s health insurance system leaves Obamacare in the dust.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/at_least_in_oz_universal_cover_is_good_sense_not_socialism/

“Pulling the Plug on Conscience” - Wesley J. Smith
I believe that the Culture of Death brooks no dissent and we are witnessing the beginning of requirements for health care professionals to either participate in medical procedures that end human life – or be complicit in them by requiring them to refer (for abortion) – the current abortion law in Victoria, Australia.

It is a sad day when medical professionals and facilities have to be protected legally from coerced participation in life-terminating medical procedures. But there is no denying the direction in which the scientific and moral currents are flowing.
I believe that medical conscience is going to be one of the most intense and bitter bioethical issues of the next ten years. The time to prepare to wage the debate is now.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/11/19/pulling-the-plug-on-conscience/

The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover -- and that's just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate floor. The move is strictly according to Senate rules, which say any senator can demand a bill be read in its entirety before debate begins.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/19/health-bill-could-get-34-hour-reading-senate/

Abortion Causes Family Feud for Dems
House passage of a sweeping anti-abortion amendment has set off a wave of soul-searching and finger-pointing among abortion rights activists — many of whom thought they’d found a safe harbor when Democrats won the White House and big majorities in Congress last year. “The reality is that we have a Democratic Congress, but we don’t have a pro-choice Congress,” said Laurie Rubiner, vice president of Planned Parenthood.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29651.html

CNN's Toobin Complains About Stupak Amendment: 'Marginalizes' Abortion
He accused “many modern pro-choice Democrats,” including the President, of ceding “the moral high ground” to pro-lifers.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/11/17/cnns-toobin-complains-about-stupak-amendment-marginalizes-abortion

African-American Leaders Oppose Black Pastors' Endorsement of Pro-Abortion Health Care
A coalition of African-American pro-life leaders have released a statement in response to the news that a group of black pastors endorsed the pro-abortion health care bills in Congress. They say the bills betray the black community because abortion targets black Americans moreso than other races.

As LifeNews.com reported last week, Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., a Los Angeles minister from the Church of God in Christ, a predominantly African-American denomination, joined other pastors in backing the legislation.

The endorsement came despite analysis from pro-life groups that the bills contain massive abortion funding and subsidies -- something media outlets and independent watchdog groups have confirmed.

"The black pro-life movement is outraged by the recent endorsement of this administration's health care proposal by some clergy of the Church of God in Christ," today's statement says in response.

"As God-fearing individuals we encourage COGIC leaders to read and evaluate the president's plan, including the Capps-Waxman Amendment, rather than merely parroting his words," they said. "If unborn children cannot depend on the Church to carefully examine this bill to see if their lives will be protected from state-funded genocide, on whom can they depend?"

They said the endorsement does not consider abortion's effect on the black community.

"Over 1,400 black babies each day are lynched out of their mothers’ wombs. Clearly, this rate of prenatal murder in our community outpaces death by heart disease, diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS and violent crime combined," they said.

"We find it troubling that this endorsement does not acknowledge the deliberate targeting of the black community by Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, nor decry the mental and physiological impact abortion is having on black women across America," they continued.

"We recommend in the strongest terms possible that this endorsement be withdrawn until such time that the Obama administration adds language to the health care proposal that specifically prohibits taxpayer funded abortions," the black pastors concluded.

According to a Los Angeles Times news report, the Church of God in Christ pastors were careful to use language saying they agreed with Obama that abortion funds should not be in the health care bills -- even though massive abortion subsidies and mandates exist.

"In accord with our commitment to Christian teaching, we wholeheartedly affirm the president's position that medical costs related to the abortion of fetuses shall not be covered by healthcare plans funded by this initiative," Blake said at a press conference.

Signers of the new statement include Pastor Stephen E. Broden of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas; Pastor Dion Evans of Chosen Vessels Christian Church in Alameda, California; Reverend Walter B. Hoye of Union City, California; and Reverend Dean Nelson of the Network of Politically Active Christians.

They also include Dr. Johnny Hunter of the black pro-life group LEARN and Dr. Levon R. Yuille, the chair of the National Black Pro Life Congress.

Last week, Dr. Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said there is nothing racist about opposing the health care plans pending in Congress because they force taxpayers to finance abortions.

“What really is racist is singling out minorities, who now receive about two-thirds of the abortions in this country, for discriminatory treatment," King explained.

"Those of us who care about the civil rights of all Americans, born and unborn, oppose Obamacare because we oppose the expansion of the most racist industry in America – the abortion industry," she said.
[September 28, 2009, Washington, DC, www.LifeNews.com, http://www.lifenews.com/nat5513.html ]

In Delivering Care, More Isn't Always Better, Experts Say
Comment: A. Why not cut "waste, abuse and fraud" now instead of waiting for some gigantic, expensive bill? B. If doctors are rampantly practicing defensive medicine, why not try malpractice tort reform like some states are already doing? C. Rationing in these "reform" bills is inevitable since the President wants to cover about 40 million more people and the supply of doctors and nurses available now is not nearly enough. D. Health savings accounts (high deductible, catastrophic coverage) are a great option for many people and would help people to personally control their own health care costs but the Obama administration won't allow this choice.  
N.Valko, R.N.

A dirty word in health-care reform is "rationing," a term that conjures up the image of faceless government bureaucrats denying lifesaving therapies in the name of cutting costs.

But what if the real issue is not the specter of future rationing, but the haphazard, even illogical, way in which care is delivered today?

Medical professionals say the fundamental problem in the nation's health-care system is the widespread misuse and overuse of tests, treatments and drugs that drive up prices, have little value to patients, and can pose serious risks. The question, they say, is not whether there will be rationing, but rather what will be rationed, and when and how.

"More is not necessarily better," said Bernard Rosof, chairman of the board of directors of New York's Huntington Hospital and a board member of the independent National Quality Forum. "In many cases, less is better."

When the Senate Finance Committee resumes its consideration of health-care legislation Tuesday, the lawmakers will be wading into one of the most complex, emotionally charged aspects of today's $2.4 trillion system. Democrats, feeling politically singed by this summer's talk of "death panels," are struggling to explain how a bill that would take hundreds of billions of dollars out of the system would not affect care.

Republicans, sensing a political opening, intend to highlight provisions they say could lead to the denial of medical services, or rationing.

"We don't want to turn health care over to a bunch of bureaucrats in Washington, who then will determine what kind of health care we have," committee member Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said recently. "And you know that rationing is going to happen."

Critics of the Democrats' bill cite places, such as Canada and Europe, where government experts prioritize the delivery of medical services. Wait times, particularly for specialists, may stretch for weeks or months under such a system, they fear.

"Here in the States, we get access to new drugs and medical devices," said Canadian-born Sally C. Pipes, president of the market-oriented Pacific Research Institute. "I have friends in Vancouver who can't get colonoscopies; they wait six or seven months."

Others, however, see problems of misalignment in the American system, fueled by industry advertising, physician fears about malpractice lawsuits and a culture that craves the latest, greatest everything. The situation here, they argue, is that there is not enough care for some, and too much for others.

Often, people with generous insurance plans can run up large bills and face life-threatening complications from unnecessary care: back surgeries that result in wound infections, when physical therapy might have been a more effective treatment; imaging scans that expose patients to radiation; medication-caused side effects that must be treated.

As much as $850 billion spent on medical care each year "can be eliminated without reducing the quality of care," according to a 2008 report by the New England Healthcare Institute. That is enough money to extend insurance coverage to more than 30 million people, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The misuse and overuse runs from simple antibiotics to sophisticated surgeries, Rosof said. More than $58 billion is spent on inappropriate drugs, such as antibiotics for upper respiratory infections that do not respond to medication, according to the institute report. About $21 billion is spent treating non-urgent cases in the emergency department, where physicians rely more on duplicative and costly tests because they are unfamiliar with their patients' histories.

The largest potential area for savings -- up to $600 billion a year -- is the great "unexplained" variation in hospital procedures such as the number of Caesarean sections and coronary bypass surgeries performed. Vaginal delivery is far safer than a C-section, and prescription medicines can stabilize many heart patients without dangerous surgical complications, Rosof said. Less invasive and risky alternatives are also less expensive.

"We will eliminate a lot of harm that comes from the overuse and inappropriate use and misuse of medical interventions," he said. "This is not about rationing. This is about practicing evidence-based medicine."

In theory, Joseph Antos, a health policy scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, agrees. One classic example, he said, is the widespread use of full-body scans "by middle-class people who are probably a little neurotic."

"If they want to spend their money on that, that's fine. If they want to spend our money on that, we ought to think about it," he said. "The problem is, there are very few examples of things like full-body scans where it is a no-brainer. When you get down to the specific individual cases, it's very difficult."

In a world of finite resources, it is logical to worry about rationing, said Mark V. Pauly, a professor of health-care management at the Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia. Making greater use of advanced practice nurses is one way to trim costs and maintain high quality, he said. But he suspects there are few instances of such "low-hanging fruit."

Many others express confidence that better data on what works and greater use of electronic medical records will help physicians deliver high-value care. But the shift will also require changes in payment incentives, malpractice laws and, ultimately, cultural attitudes.

In today's system, doctors face increasing pressure to perform expensive tests and procedures they know may not be necessary, or even advisable, said Arthur Kellerman, an associate dean at Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta and a physician at that city's Grady Memorial Hospital. Patients routinely arrive in the hospital's emergency room complaining of a headache and asking for a CT scan. Though the costly scan can help detect tumors and aneurysms, Kellerman counsels against it, explaining the risk of radiation exposure.

"We can always revisit it down the road if the problem persists," he tells the patient. Kellerman has just rationed care. But, he maintains, it is the right kind of rationing, based on known benefits and risks. And reducing traffic in the ER helps free up beds, machines and doctors to treat the true emergencies.

As he put it: "In the United States today, we give you all the care you can afford, whether or not you need it, as opposed to all the care you need, whether or not you can afford it."

Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.
[29Sept09, Washington Post, Ceci Connelly, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/28/AR2009092803837_pf.html]

Devaluing Doctors -- and Care... A Physician's Commentary (8/09)

Physicians have been cast as the villains in the drama that our national health-care debate has become.

We stand accused of raising charges to private insurers to compensate for low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements as well as care of the uninsured or illegal immigrants; doing more to get paid more; seeing patients more often than necessary to increase revenue; and providing inefficient and ineffective care to patients in the hospital.

Our motives are impugned. The care we render is being disparaged and our professionalism disregarded -- yet somehow it is assumed that doctors are merely passive pawns to be moved around the chessboard of health care.

Where are the investigative journalists?

How many physicians who are not radiologists own their own MRI machine, CT scanner, PET scanner or other sophisticated diagnostic equipment to which they refer their patients?

Why would President Obama blast pediatricians for doing tonsillectomies for profit, when any intelligent person knows that pediatricians do not do surgery? They care for sick children and refer them to ear, nose and throat specialists when surgery is needed.

Why does no one seem to be aware that surgeons have functioned under a "global reimbursement" system for more than 35 years? Surgeons are paid a set fee for the care rendered for surgery or fracture care for a fixed period (frequently 90 days) regardless of how often they see a patient or how long the patient remains in the hospital.

For that matter, why would intelligent physicians fill their schedules with unnecessary return visits for Medicare/Medicaid patients, who are the lowest payers in the mix, limiting the number of new patients they could see?

And how is it that so many physicians "pass along" the losses of caring for the uninsured or Medicare/Medicaid patients when in fact doctors labor under contracts with big insurers that are basically take-it-or-leave-it with payment rates not much higher than Medicare, which has become the new standard?

I have been a practicing orthopedic surgeon for 40 years.

I have observed profound changes in my profession since the advent of Medicare, changes that have affected patients' access to care. As reimbursements plummeted, internists abandoned hospital care to the new specialty of hospitalists, created boutique practices and stopped participating with health insurance companies.

Physicians in all specialties have been retiring at earlier ages than ever before.

In my own office, our staff has doubled over the past 40 years to enable us to handle the growing stream of government and insurer mandates.

Our reimbursements continue to drop -- with no ability to pass on these costs.

We are not the Mayo Clinic. There is no foundation to provide computers and electronic medical records or research grants to supplement salaries. Everything we do must come out of the reimbursement we receive for the care we provide to each patient.

Total joint replacement surgery for an arthritic hip and knee is a prime example of the difficulties physicians face and of the implications of health-care reform as envisaged by Congress and academic "experts."

In 1971 I was paid $1,000 for a total hip replacement. Today, I would be paid approximately $1,600 for the same service.

There is no multiplier -- a surgeon can only do one patient at a time. We continue in our practice for the immense satisfaction we receive from knowing that this surgery does more to restore a high quality of life to patients than any other surgery, and for the gratitude patients show.

We implant devices because we believe, based on medical literature, that they are the best choices for patients. The overwhelming majority of surgeons have not received fees from implant manufacturers -- many times lowering the profitability of our hospitals.

Consider the implications when a global fee will be paid to the hospital: Then hospital and physician incentives will be aligned, and patients will bear the cost of the search for ever-cheaper implants and techniques, such as a return to cemented total hips.

Forget metal-on-metal bearings, resurfacing, rotating platforms, high-flex knees, navigation systems or bilateral replacements.

And if our hospitals are financially penalized for occurrences such as infection and deep-vein thrombosis after surgery, who will operate on the obese, the hypertensive or the diabetics among us?

Experience with government funding reveals a never-ending spiral of decreased reimbursements in the name of restraining costs. In the end, this will come out of the care we all receive.

At your next visit to your specialist, take a tip from the drug company ads and "ask your doctor": Does he or she plan to retire early if reform legislation passes close to its present form?

Does he or she plan to continue to participate with Medicare/Medicaid or participate with insurers that will not reimburse adequately?

How does your doctor think health-care reform will affect the care you receive in his or her specialty?

Access to a waiting list is not access to health care.

Health Care Reform and Abortion - What's the Truth? President Obama contends that conservatives are "bearing false witness" about his healthcare reform plan, but one leading conservative says it's the president who's misleading the American public.  [http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=652150; One News Now; 21Aug09. ALL Pro-Life Today]

Death Panels: Euthanasia Group Behind "End-of-Life" Counseling Although President Obama and liberal Congressional Democrats have denounced claims that the health care reform establishes “death panels,” it does not help reassure the American public that the nation’s foremost pro-euthanasia group is actively pushing “end-of-life counseling” as a centerpiece of health-care reforms. [http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09082015.html; 21Aug09. ALL Pro-Life Today]

The National Black ProLife Union, a group of African-American leaders, held a press conference in Washington D.C. on August 18. Listen to 3 short video clips at http://www.criticalmention.com/vg/crc/WIN/   

www.nationalblackprolifeunion.com

Also for the complete AAPLOG statement, go to http://www.aaplog.org/latebreakingnews.aspx

Note:  Black unborn babies are killed  at a rate THREE TIMES that of non-black unborn babies.  
The AAPLOG written statement for the press conference follows, in part:

    Caring for each patient, by first doing no harm, has been a core precept of the medical profession since the time of Hippocrates. The Hippocratic oath distinguishes doctors and other health care professionals from social engineers; those who want to use medical care as a kind of tool to manipulate society. Any health care reform bills must not force health care professionals to violate the trust at the core of the physician-patient relationship...

    We call on the Administration to amend the Health Care Reform bills to explicitly exclude funding of abortion from the national health care plans. Abortion not only kills the unborn child, but also increases the mother's risk of suicide, depression, substance abuse and other adverse mental health outcomes. The woman who aborts increases her risk of preterm birth and cerebral palsy in subsequent pregnancies. The woman undergoing RU-486 abortion has increased risks of death from infection and massive hemorrhage...

    We also call on the Administration to explicitly confirm and defend the health care professional's right to refuse to participate in procedures which violate that health care professional's conscience, include procedures explicitly forbidden under the Hippocratic Oath: abortion and euthanasia.

Donna J. Harrison, M.D. President. American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, also made this oral statement on 18Aug09 at the National Black ProLife Union press conference:

    The Hippocratic Oath means I won't kill you, or your grama, or your unborn child. A Hippocratic Doctor vows to protect, not destroy, human life. But, as an obgyn doctor under the proposed health care reform bill, I could lose my job for refusing to kill your unborn child. The doctor who vows not to harm you or your child is protected by three narrow laws, all of which will be wiped out under the proposed health care reform.

    The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists joins in calling on President Obama to keep his promise to protect the right of conscience of all health professionals, not just doctors, but also nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and PA's. who have vowed not to hurt you or your unborn child or any of your family. We call on the President to change the proposed health care reform bills to explicitly include real, not deceitful, conscience protections for all health professionals who work to protect, not destroy, human life.

    Abortion destroys life. Abortion not only kills the unborn child, but also increases the mother's risk of suicide, depression, substance abuse and other adverse mental health outcomes. Abortion increases her risk of preterm birth and cerebral palsy in the next pregnancy. RU-486 abortion increases her risk of death from infection and massive hemorrhage. These and other health risks are well documented in the medical literature.

    Abortion destroys life. And abortion in this country is targeted at Black women. One third of the abortions done in this country are done on black women, even though Black women make up about one sixth of the population. Under the current bill, tax money is used to fund abortion providers, who already expand operations disproportionately to Black Americans. This means more black children aborted. We call on President Obama to explicitly exclude any tax funding of abortions from any proposed health care reform bills.

    And we call on the President to stop all current government subsidy to those organizations who in their roots and in their actions target the black community for genocide.

    Health care is about life. And health care reform must be about making life better, not destroying the lives of people who someone else doesn't want.


Confronting Abortion on Facebook
AAPLOG has a facebook page at    http://www.facebook.com/pages/American-Association-of-Pro-Life-OBGYNS/101069505589 .   AAPLOG presents abortion complication related information, and engages in dialogue.  On the "wall" is one set, on the "discussion" page is a more complete presentation.  

Blood Money http://www.bloodmoneyfilm.com/

Former Soviet Union, Now Medical Student in U.S.: Where Will I Flee Next?
My family emigrated from the former Soviet Union to the United States in hopes of finding freedom to act in accordance to their moral beliefs.

My mother was a practicing physician in Ukraine. Going through her medical education, and later practicing medicine, she was never allowed to discuss ethical issues in medicine. There were none.

Physicians were forced to act according to the communist agenda, end of discussion.

It was the government that dictated what physicians must believe, and how they should practice. Abortion was never an issue in the Soviet Union, simply because the communist government dictated that it was not an ethical dilemma, and all physicians were required to perform the procedure. Those who disobeyed could not obtain their medical license or continue their practice.

I became very concerned when I learned about President Barack Obama’s plan to rescind the conscience clause. It made me uneasy to think that my adopted country, which was always proud of its democratic heritage, had begun to remind me of a communist country my family fled ten years ago.

The United States was built on the principles of freedom to believe and practice in accord with personal religious and moral values.

The conscience protection rule is an integral part of protecting these principles.
As a second-year medical student and a future physician, I will be committed to the wellbeing of my patients. I will also be committed to practicing medicine on the basis of my moral values.

If the conscience rule is rescinded and I am obligated to choose between performing an abortion or losing my job, I will choose the latter.
And then where will I flee next?
[Katrina A. Belova, Osteopathic Medical Student, Statement June 17, 2009; http://www.freedom2care.org/docLib/20090619_BelovaKatrina.pdf]

If Congress passes the House version of Obama Care, the Right of Conscience for Physicians will be eliminated -- this would be the silent FOCA (the 158,000-word HR 3200, called “America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009”), American doctors will soon face a similar dilemma: obey new government mandates compelling participation in abortion or leave medicine.   Full op-ed: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?print=yes&id=33071

House Health Care Bill Gives Doctors Financial Incentive to Push Euthanasia
To hear backers of the government-run health care bill tell the story, pro-life advocates are making up wild-eyed claims about how the measure will push euthanasia. However, one leading bioethicist and a Washington Post Editorial Writer say the bill does give doctors financial incentive to push it.

At issue is Section 1233 of HR 3200, the government-run health care plan that the House will consider when it returns from its August recess.

The measure would pay physicians to give Medicare patients end-of-life counseling every five years or sooner if the patient has a terminal diagnosis.

While pro-life advocates say the section opens the door to physicians pushing euthanasia or withdrawal of lifesaving medical treatment, or even basic food and water, backers of the bill call the claims rubbish.

Charles Lane, a member of the editorial board of the liberal Washington Post newspaper, admits in a Saturday column that at least some of the concerns are well-founded.

"As I read it, Section 1233 is not totally innocuous," Lane writes, adding that it "addresses compassionate goals in disconcerting proximity to fiscal ones."

"Though not mandatory, as some on the right have claimed, the consultations envisioned in Section 1233 aren't quite 'purely voluntary,'" as backers of the bill assert, Lane adds. "To me, 'purely voluntary' means 'not unless the patient requests one.' Section 1233, however, lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive -- money -- to do so. Indeed, that's an incentive to insist."

"Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they're in the meeting, the bill does permit 'formulation' of a plug-pulling order right then and there," Lane explains.

"What's more, Section 1233 dictates, at some length, the content of the consultation," Lane continues.

He points out the legislation says the doctor "shall" discuss "advanced care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to"; "an explanation of . . . living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses" even though those are legal and not medical papers. The physician "shall" present "a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families."

"Admittedly, this script is vague and possibly unenforceable," Lane writes. "What are "key questions"? Who belongs on 'a list' of helpful 'resources?' The Roman Catholic Church? Jack Kevorkian?"

Ultimately, the Post editorial writer says "Section 1233 goes beyond facilitating doctor input to preferring it. Indeed, the measure would have an interested party -- the government -- recruit doctors to sell the elderly on living wills, hospice care and their associated providers, professions and organizations."

"You don't have to be a right-wing wacko to question that approach," he concludes.

Bioethicist Frank Beckwith notes Lane's analysis in comments of his own that appeared on the blog of the publication First Things.

"Supporters of H.R. 3200 claim that its end of life counseling provision, section 1233, is merely voluntary for the patient," Beckwith explains.

"But a closer look shows that section 1233 includes conditions and financial incentives for physicians and other health care providers that create a setting in which an elderly patient’s decision to appropriate this option is likely to be less than voluntary," he writes.

Beckwith says anyone with elderly parents should be "deeply concerned" about the section.

"If, let’s say, H.R. 3200 or something close to it were to become law and the public option pushes private insurance into near non-existence (as would surely happen with all the incentives in place), then there will no neighboring state to which to run," he says. "You won't be able to take your business elsewhere, since there will be no elsewhere."

"And to whom will you issue your grievance, a special 'health court,'" Beckwith asks.

Such a court, he says, would be "one likely informed by a youth-worshipping culture and a utilitarian bioethics philosophy that sees the elderly (not to mention, handicapped infants) as burdens that are siphoning away valuable resources that could be put to better use in support of society’s “real persons” and more productive contributors." [
Ertelt
LifeNews.com
August 10, 2009
Washington, DC, http://www.lifenews.com/bio2913.html]

Pro-Life Blacks, Democrats, Doctors Visited Congress to Oppose Health Care Bill
A coalition of pro-life blacks, doctors and Democrats visited Capitol Hill 18Aug09 to press the case for getting abortion out of the Congressional health care bills. They were joined by Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who asked that Congress not expand abortions. The participants held a press conference and took their case to the halls of Congress to meet with members of the House and Senate and their staff.
In a statement, King tells LifeNews.com that the health care legislation takes the wrong approach by targeting unborn children with abortion instead of assisting them with health care.
“The unborn and elderly should be included in health insurance reform as recipients of care, not victims of genocide,” King said.
She said pro-life advocates have no problem with promoting better legitimate health care, but can't support bills that open the door for more abortion funding. [17Aug09, LifeNews.com, Washington, DC]

Planned Parenthood Continues Boasting Close Ties with White House on Obamacare Bill
As calls for protection against abortion in President Obama's health care legislation fall on deaf ears, Planned Parenthood (PP) has made no secret of its continued communications with the White House on its interest in ensuring that "reproductive health" plays a central role in the final version of the legislation.
[http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/aug/09081403.html; ALL Pro-Life Today, 17Aug09]]

Health Care Reform Would Allow Planned Parenthood Clinics in Schools
A measure in President Barack Obama's health care plan could allow for special interest groups like Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion services provider, to operate health care clinics, at taxpayer expense, inside America's public schools. [http://www.examiner.com/x-11483-Dallas-Republican-Examiner~y2009m8d15-Health-Care-Reform-Would-Allow-Planned-Parenthood-Clinics-in-Schools ,
Dallas Examiner; ALL Pro-Life Today, 17Aug09]