Please read Part 1 and Part 2.

Contrary to recent media reports, the Brazilian Blowout hair treatment is safe for use.

Oregon OSHA and Federal OSHA had already attacked Brazilian Blowout’s product, steering the media to focus on faulty aspects of their respective studies, and burying the truth  –  that the product does not release formaldehyde in amounts that exceed state or federal short-term or long-term exposure limits.

Enter Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D – 3 – OR).  Ontheissues.org labels him a “hard-core Liberal”, and you know what that means when it comes to anything involving chemicals or the environment.   Rep. Blumenauer sponsored nonsensical bills like HR 3311 that taxes drivers based on miles driven; a ludicrous bill to jump-start the funding of streetcars; a bill to establish under-the-radar death panels; a bill providing environmental education grants for outdoor experiences (huh?); and even one quashing free speech by attempting to ban a website promoting the perfectly safe Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.

So Rep. Blumenauer reads about OSHA’s nonsense in the media and, because he’s a politician, doesn’t do his research, either.  Nor does he bother contacting the company to get their side of the story.   Instead, he grandstands by penning a letter to the Food and Drug Administration asking that they recall the product — a product already proven to meet OSHA standards!

I asked Rep. Blumenauer’s press secretary, Derek Schlickeisen, about this approach to policy.  His assertion was that politicians “can’t have a chemist on staff”, and thus rely on OSHA’s scientists to bring incidents like this to light.  When I mentioned that the company-funded study by Health Science Associates showed formaldehyde levels below OSHA standards, he inferred that the study held little weight because it was company funded.

Yet why is it that OSHA’s results are given any more credibility, especially when OSHA caused a panic based entirely on a faulty sample?  Are we to believe that OSHA scientists are somehow free of ideological bias?  Kermit McCarthy, one of the authors of the Oregon OSHA study, “likes” hard-core Liberal Sen. Ron Wyden according to his Facebook page.  Why isn’t his bias questioned?  If anything, a government worker is likely more biased than a private company to insert bias, because his very job depends on his work generating a result that permits the government to do something.  Otherwise, the agency’s existence, and the employee’s, have no purpose.

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The most instructive part of the president’s “deficit” speech last week was his insistence that he could help balance the budget through an “independent commission” with the “authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.”  That commission is the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) and it is nothing more than another leg in ObamaCare’s rationing stool.

Writing in the Weekly Standard, Mark Hemmingway writes:

Here’s how IPAB works. It’s a panel comprised of 15 presidential appointees who are tasked with reducing Medicare spending. The panel is is given certain spending targets that kick in in 2014. At first those targets are on a sliding scale, but by 2018 the spending targets are set at the rate of GDP growth with an additional half of a percentage point tacked on. (Originally, it was GDP plus a full percentage point, but according to the “framework” released prior to the President’s speech the spending target has been reduced.)

Any recommendations IPAB makes about Medicare spending automatically become law. Congress can only override IPAB with a three-fifths majority vote, which is a very high legislative hurdle, or they can pass their own Medicare plan that meets the same spending target. There’s no administrative process for doctors or citizens to challenge the board’s decisions. There’s a school of thought that says IPAB is even more blatantly unconstitutional than the individual mandate, as its power sounds legislative in nature — its declarations would have the force of law — and therefore cannot legitimately be delegated to an executive entity.

In short, the IPAB would give power to unelected bureaucrats the make life or death decisions about Medicare – and probably private insurance – coverage without any way for patients to challenge the decision of the board.  Rationing would be implemented without a vote of Congress.

Writing in the National Review, James Capretta, points out that the Administration will not only use the panel to ration care but it’s real purpose is to build a stepping stone toward a nationalized health care system.

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The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS), under enormous public pressure, proposed that Provenge, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved treatment for prostate cancer, be covered by insurance following a controversial “review.” A final decision on the issue is expected to be published 60 days after the public comment period for the proposed decision has ended.

On the same day as the CMS decision, Judicial Watch released hundreds of pages of documents from the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) detailing how and why the review was instituted. And here’s one of our major finds: While the Obama administration claimed the cost of Provenge had nothing to do with their review, these documents suggest otherwise. (Remember Medicare and the FDA are legally prohibited from denying approval of a medical treatment based solely on cost.)

Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with HHS over Provenge after the press reported the CMS had taken the rare step of calling for a review Provenge to see if it is “reasonable and necessary” and should be covered by Medicaid and Medicare.

The move caused widespread panic among those patients who depend on the treatments to live, as well as anyone else who had heard all about health care rationing and “death panels” under Obamacare. (Let’s not forget, Obama named “Death Panel Donald” Berwick to head CMS and Berwick is on record supporting the idea of health care rationing, so these fears are not unfounded.)

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The cancer drug Avastin has become ground zero in the debate of the future of our health care system. Will drugs and treatments be rationed under a government-run system? Will patients have the same access and options as they do under our current plan? Will patients be subject to a “cost-benefit” analysis by government bureaucrats – like in other countries — when deciding what drugs the government will cover and what drugs they won’t?

Recent actions by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “de-label” the late stage cancer drug raise these and other issues critical to the future of our health care system. The FDA proposal would essentially allow Medicare and other insurance plans, including private ones – to tell patients they will need to cover the cost of the treatment on their own. There would no longer be an obligation to pay for treatment. If you want Avastin as an option in your efforts to fight breast cancer, you would have to pay for it. And what if you cannot afford the estimated $80,000 a year for treatment? The FDA won’t answer that question.

The maker of the drug has petitioned the FDA for a hearing on their actions and have yet to be granted even the ability to make their case. But they have strong advocates in their corner, including a number of influential patient advocacy groups that fear the FDA’s decision will limit patient and doctors choices in the future.

Among those that have critically weighed in against the FDA include the Susan Komen Foundation, Cancer101, the Colon Cancer Alliance and the Cancer Support Community. They understand the stakes and see the decision as a critical precedent that will change our health care system dramatically – and not for the better — if the FDA moves forward.

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With little fanfare, Rationer-in-Chief Donald Berwick, President Obama’s choice to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, appeared before the House Ways and Means Committee and did his best impression of Gumby – twisting and turning his support for rationing health care.

Berwick has championed the British health care system for years proclaiming his outright support of rationing. In 2009, Berwick said, “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care — the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” In a 2008 speech, Berwick proclaimed, “I am romantic about the NHS; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country.” Of course, the British system openly rations care for the sick and the elderly.

But Berwick ran from those statements like a scalded dog before House members who asked pointed questions about his support for rationing care. When Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) asked him whether he supports healthcare rationing, Berwick said, “I abhor rationing.” At another point he said that he spent his whole life fighting rationing, The Hill reports.

Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) asked him whether he was still “in love” with the British healthcare system, Berwick’s response: “There are strengths and weaknesses in every healthcare system in the world. The American healthcare system needs an American solution.”

For fear of stating the obvious, it is clear Berwick was not honest in his testimony.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech discuss Donald Berwick’s testimony on Capitol Hill today. Then Pejman Yousefzadeh talks about Mubarak and the White House.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Berwick to Testify Before House for the First Time
Don Berwick Online
Politico Arena: Has Mubarak Already Won? – Pej responds
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Fashioning good legislative policy (so that laws that we enact garner maximum respect from the public) requires, as we have seen from its absence in the prior Congress, patience and compromise.  A party with electoral control over both chambers of Congress and the presidency can probably pass a bill into law, but you rarely can get everything you want if the goal is to maximize a national consensus.  Mr. Obama and his Democratic majority claim to have gotten much of their agenda through, but until the president was forced to engage in coalition building in the lame duck session, as a result of the November 2 “shellacking” taken by his party, most of the bills supported only by the far left are under attack by the new Congress and the courts.  And even if the GOP cannot either dismantle the monstrous health care and financial “reform” laws that were passed or be successful in court challenges, we will be left with years of anger, recrimination, and confusion arising out of multi‑thousand page laws that no member of Congress even read.

Instead our elected leaders have left it, largely, to unelected bureaucrats appointed by the current Administration to write detailed regulations to determine how to interpret and enforce the so‑called “will” of the same Congress that never read or understood what they passed.  We have seen alarming portents of this in recent pronouncements by regulatory agencies as to their intent when final regulations are promulgated.  The regulations, as we have seen from the  public pronouncements show no real effort to determine that intent but rather are designed to enact the agenda of the far left which the Democrats, even with their large congressional majority, could not pass.  The common thread is to transfer more control of the private sector to the government, to redistribute wealth and dismantle or exercise unprecedented control over the industries that are in their crosshairs.  This is not alarmist rhetoric; it is simply sad fact.  For them the ends justify the means.

Take this example.  Because of alarm that Sarah Palin’s so‑called “death panels” would scuttle the healthcare legislation; end-of-life counseling was dropped from the health care bill.  Frankly, we think the term “death panels” was overheated rhetoric and an allegorical stretch even for politicians, and that counseling terminally ill patients who are in pain about their right to refuse “heroic” but probably ineffective measures to prolong life a while longer, is totally appropriate.  However, in order to pass the law, Congress compromised and dropped the end-of-life counseling provision.  Before the end of 2010, however, Medicare issued a regulation restoring the provision.  Moreover the regulation was buried among hundreds of other Medicare regulations.  The original Congressional supporter of government payments for such counseling was so delighted by this action that he urged his supporters “not to crow about it” presumably so it wouldn’t get much attention.  Can anyone believe this wasn’t the Administration’s intent all along?  As Charles Krauthammer stated in his December 31 op‑ed in the Washington Post, “For an Obama bureaucrat, … the will of Congress is a mere speed bump.”

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Shortly after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would cut off late-stage breast cancer patients from Avastin, the Obama Administration announced it would create “end of life counseling” program for Medicare patients. How convenient. The government is sentencing women to death but will try to make them feel better about it.

It’s no surprise that the announcement of the creation of “end of life counseling” comes from the rationer-in-chief Donald Berwick — the unconfirmed head of the Office of Medicare and Medicaid Services. Berwick has said that “Cynics beware, I am romantic about the [British] National Health Service, I love it.” Here’s another Berwick quote: “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care, the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.”

It’s clear the bureaucrats have begun to ration care with their “eyes open” but the question is the American people seeing what is happening?

For decades, America was not only the golden land of opportunity; it was the place where the sick would come for cutting edge treatments that could not be found anywhere else. The socialist health care systems of Europe could not save your life, but a trip to America often could. Americans took this for granted. But we cannot anymore.

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I’m going to take the death panel end-of-life planning conundrum down one point at a time to make this very clear for Americans to understand what the Pelosi-led Democrats have done to your healthcare and their attempt to take cover under a Bush-era law–the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act of 2008.

The Hill reported that the Obama White House attempted to calm Americans’ fears of the dreaded death panels:

The Medicare policy will pay doctors for holding end-of-life-care discussions with patients, according to the Times. A similar provision was dropped from the new healthcare reform law after Republicans accused the administration of withholding care from the sick, elderly and disabled.

However, an administration spokesman said the regulation, which is less specific than the reform law’s draft language, is actually a continuation of a policy enacted under former President George W. Bush.

“The only thing new here is a regulation allowing the discussions … to happen in the context of the new annual wellness visit created by [healthcare reform],” Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin told The Wall Street Journal.

In 2003, Medicare added a consultation visit for seniors new to the program, according to the Journal. Another 2008 law, enacted under Bush, said the visit can include “end-of-life” planning discussions.

However, what The Hill’s Jason Millman forgot to mention in his article was that President Bush VETOED the 2008 bill and the Democrats, along with some “good-willed” Republicans OVERRODE Bush’s veto forcing him to sign the legislation into law.  The bill dealt with doctors’ reimbursements and more, but the Democrats slipped in the end-of-life planning by opening up the Social Security Act, which I have stated many times is dangerous. Once the act is changed, it is difficult to amend again and allows for tinkering with the Medicare fee schedule and covered services definitions and requirements

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From the Associated Press:

A new health regulation issued this month offers Medicare recipients voluntary end-of-life planning, which Democrats dropped from the monumental health care overhaul last year.

The provision allows Medicare to pay for voluntary counseling to help beneficiaries deal with the complex and painful decisions families face when a loved one is approaching death.

But the practice was heavily criticized by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and some other Republicans who have likened the counseling to “death panels.”

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The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) announced yesterday that it would ration the late-stage cancer drug Avastin for breast cancer patients. (Ironically, the same day, the EU announced it would not ration access to Avastin.)  The reaction to the FDA’s decision has been fierce:

Rep. Kay Granger:  “For the 17,500 women across the country who rely on Avastin to survive, I am extremely disappointed the FDA has chosen to take away one of the very few options for the treatment of late-stage breast cancer. To make matters worse, this announcement comes on the same day that European drug regulators approved the continued use of Avastin for women with late-stage breast cancer.  It is troubling that women in Germany and France will soon have access to a life-saving drug, while women in the U.S. will not. I will continue to work in the 112th Congress to ensure doctors and patients continue to have access to every available treatment option.”

Rep. Rodney Alexander:  “As expected, the Obama administration has begun its process of rationing health care with its announcement to remove Avastin from the market for women suffering from metastatic breast cancer. Today’s decision to limit women’s access to a lifesaving treatment is amiss, and indicative of the frightful direction our health care system is headed.

 For the government to deny access to such a viable treatment is a severe intrusion into personal health care decisions that should be left between the patient and the doctor. Given that this drug helps over 17,000 patients manage their disease, it appears this move is merely based on cost cutting and rationing rather than on any real medical grounds.  Avastin has extended the lives of thousands of individuals suffering from this devastating disease. Going forward, they will no longer be afforded that opportunity. This decision represents the first major example of things to come if components of the recent health care overhaul are allowed to continue. I will work with others in the incoming majority to restore the fundamentals of the U.S. health care system.”

Susan B. Komen Foundation for a Cure:  Komen for the Cure’s president, Elizabeth Thompson said that the organization is concerned about the potential impact on women who are benefitting from Avastin if the FDA ultimately removes its approval for the drug for breast cancer treatment. “We want to be sure that women who are using Avastin, and for whom it is working, can continue to have access to it, that their insurers will continue to pay for it and that the drug’s manufacturer, Genentech/Roche, continues making the drug available to women through its patient support programs and considers an expanded access program.”

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The battle over health care took a turn for the better Monday as Federal Judge Henry Hudson struck down certain provisions of the bill as unconstitutional.  Unfortunately, things could take a turn for the worse for breast cancer patients by Friday as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decides whether to ration the drug Avastin for breast cancer patients.

The headlines are full of stories about the impact of ObamaCare – none of them good.  Here is a recent sample:

Obamacare: Study Finds 40% of Doctors May Quit:  Research conducted by Merritt Hawkins shows that the new health care reform could intensify existing problems for doctors and worsen the shortage of primary care doctors, making it more difficult for patients to access quality care. Here are some specifics:

• The majority of physicians (60%) said health reform will compel them to close or significantly restrict their practices to certain categories of patients. Of these, 93% said they will be forced to close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicaid patients, while 87% said they would be forced to close or significantly restrict their practices to Medicare patients.

• 40% of physicians said they would drop out of patient care in the next one to three years, either by retiring, seeking a non-clinical job within healthcare, or by seeking a non-healthcare related job.

• The majority of physicians (59%) said health reform will cause them to spend less time with patients.

60% of Americans Want ObamaCare Repeal:  The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 60% of Likely U.S. Voters at least somewhat favor repeal of the health care law while 34% are opposed. As has been the case since the law was first passed, those who favor repeal feel more passionately than those who want to keep the law–46% Strongly Favor repeal while just 23% who are Strongly Opposed.

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We have been warning readers about the impact the pending Food and Drug Administration (FDA) whether to ration the late-stage cancer drug Avastin based on its cost will have on breast cancer patients. Should the FDA move forward their promises to be reverberations throughout our health care system as cutting edge, and frankly, expensive drugs, will be left on the clinic room floor in order to “reduce the cost of health care.”

What we didn’t necessarily realize is the impact the FDA’s decision would have prior to reaching a decision. Big Government has obtained information that three major health insurance carriers have already begun denying breast cancer patients coverage for Avastin because of the FDA’s pending decision.

– Regence Blue Shield, the large regional plan in the Pacific Northwest recently published an Avastin policy listing the breast cancer treatment as “medically unnecessary.”

– Utah Public Employee Health Plan a small regional payer in Utah has begun to deny all Avastin claims but has not yet bothered to publish a written policy.

– Health Care Service Corporation the parent company of Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Illinois, New Mexico and Oklahoma recently published an Avastin policy that restricts use of Avastin.

In short, insurance companies are already taking their cue from the federal government and patients are being denied care as we speak.

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From the Washington Post:

The FDA is not supposed to consider costs in its decisions, but if the agency rescinds approval, insurers are likely to stop paying for treatment.

“It’s hard to talk about Avastin without talking about costs,” said Eric P. Winer, director of the Breast Oncology Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “For better or worse, Avastin has become in many ways the poster child of high-priced anti-cancer drugs.”

Avastin is the world’s best-selling cancer drug, with global sales of $5.8 billion, and it is the top-selling product for Roche, whose Genentech unit makes it. Its use to treat breast cancer brings in about $855 million in annual revenue in the United States.

Avastin is approved for use in treating several cancers, including those of the colon, lung, kidney and brain. So doctors could continue to write prescriptions for it for breast cancer, as an “off-label” use. But in addition to prompting insurers including Medicare to stop paying for Avastin, an FDA revocation of approval for its use in breast cancer treatment might mean that breast cancer patients would lose eligibility for a program in which Genentech caps the annual cost of the drug at $57,000 for women with annual incomes of less than $100,000.

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In response the sharp rebuke of Obamacare sent by voters in Missouri, Senator Harry Reid says that voters in Missouri just don’t know enough about the new law yet and when they do, they will change their minds. Well Senator, Missouri is after all the Show Me State and apparently Missourians don’t like what they have seen so far.

The simple truth is: You can’t get something for nothing and someone has the pay the bill.  Nothing in Obamacare creates more health care. It is merely injects government into the equation in order to take what we have currently and redistribute it.  So naturally, the government will need to find ways to cut costs.

Soon to be former director of the OMB, Peter Orzag believes that we can save money “…if costly new medical services were adopted more selectively in the future than they have been in the past, and if the diffusion of existing costly services was slowed. “

Well, how does the government go about doing that? How do they tell people that a life saving or life extending treatment exists, but it just costs too much so patients can’t have it?

Well, they don’t. They utilize control over the system to manipulate the availability of the treatment and then lead people to believe that it just doesn’t work. Problem solved.

We’ve already begun to see this operation in action with the FDA’s recent attempts to de-label the cancer drug Avastin for use with Stage 4 breast cancer patients.

The FDA was created and designed to protect citizens from products that are inherently unsafe or that make claims of effectiveness that cannot be substantiated.  There is no authority to consider drug pricing when evaluating a drug.

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Liberals have always taken the long view to government control. Most understand that getting Obamacare passed was just the first step. Now that they have control of the nation’s healthcare the real change can be brought about.

Speaking at the Netroots Nation conference in Las Vegas, Reid promised the left wing bloggers that “we will have a public option. Its just a matter of when.”

For those who think that the healthcare battle is over, this should be a wake up call. Until the most onerous portions of Obamacare are repealed, they will keep chipping away until they get what they really want—British style single payer government run healthcare.

This week, we’ve been reporting on the FDA’s attempt to de-label the drug Avastin for late stage breast cancer patients. This case provides valuable insights into how things are going to work.

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It was an article of faith among Obamacare supporters that worry over so-called death panels was simply a cynical ploy by conservative leaders to scare the peasants. Blatant fearmongering, they claimed. Now it’s looking more and more like a valid concern.  Writing at the Daily Caller, Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute highlights quotes from Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama’s nominee to be director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which suggest that death panels might be on his wish-list.

“I am romantic about the National Health Service. I love it,” he has said about the British health care system.  His favorite part of British health care seems to be its rationing arm, the National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness (NICE).  NICE is responsible for determining whether or not the life-extending benefits a patient receives are worth the cost to the government.  Dr. Berwick calls this institution a “global treasure.”

How much is a human life worth? About £30,000 per year, according to NICE.  Anything more than $44,000 per year of extended life, and NICE is likely to deny treatment.  Important drugs that prolong the life of cancer patients, such as Lapatinib and Sutent, are not allowed.  Alzheimer’s drugs are also heavily restricted for those in the early stages of the disease despite the fact that the early stages are when treatment can provide the most benefit.  Originally pitched as nothing more than a board to promote “best practices,” NICE has become a rationing, death panel machine.

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There are many bad things contained in Chris Dodd’s Restoring American Financial Stability Act,” the financial regulatory “reform” bill that after filibustering for three days — with the assistance of Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson — Republicans agreed to let come to the floor for amendment and debate.

Among its horrors are a massive new consumer agency with the power to track virtually every financial transaction to share with other big agencies like the IRS, onerous new restrictions on angel investors and venture capital that greatly delay funding promising startup firms, proxy access provisions that would federalize state incorporation laws and empower unions and other progressive shareholders to wage director campaigns at the company and other shareholders’ expense, and no attempted reform of the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the center of the financial mess.

But the most destructive portions of the bill — the one that would in my judgment go beyond even Obamacare in making the American free enterprise system unrecognizable — has been little discussed even by critics of this bill. To put it bluntly but absolutely accurately, this bill sets up a mechanism for the Treasury Secretary, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to nationalize virtually any business they deem to be a threat to American “financial stability.”

I include myself among these critics not focusing on this issue and I apologize for not informing readers sooner, but I wanted to be sure the bill would do what I suspected it would do. Many of the bill provisions are interconnected, and what can seem like a mild measure by itself becomes lethal when combined with another sections. As Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett recently wrote: “Buried in [the bill’s] pages are numerous clauses and sub-clauses, many of which have been largely ignored until now (partly because they strike most non-financiers as pretty dull). Yet, the fine print could turn out to be crucial in the coming years.”

And after reading and rereading the “fine print” of this 1336-page piece of legislation (which will grow by hundreds more pages when amendments are added), it is clear that the bill’s “orderly liquidation authority” would facilitate outright government seizure of a wide variety of firms with very limited judicial review.

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In 2008 Patrick Swayze was treated with an advanced medical tool called a “CyberKnife.” It helped add months to his life as he tried to beat the cancer that was consuming him. But, Swayze wasn’t the only American with the good fortune to have this highly advanced medical technology available to him. In fact, there are 100 such machines across the United States. From California, to Minnesota, to Illinois and Washington D.C. Americans currently have the luxury of these wonderful new devices.

Sadly, Britons are not so lucky. There are two CyberKnife machines in the Britain, but they aren’t going to do anyone in the country’s socialist healthcare system any good because despite how successful these machines are British authorities won’t allow them to be used on patients.

Despite that the Mount Vernon cancer hospital in London is part of the National Health Services, despite that they spent £3m to purchase the machine, and quite despite the praise the machines receive in the U.S. and throughout the world, British NHS authorities won’t let NHS doctors use the machine on their patients.

Sadly, these heartless, uncaring socialist healthcare officials are uninterested in helping the estimated 10,000 British patients a year that could benefit from use of the CyberKnife. And why is this? Why, it’s because the treatments are expensive, of course.

You see money is far, far more important to Britain’s socialist healthcare system then patients.

As I said above, the U.S. is lucky to have many of these machines on our shores. In fact we have 100 of the 150 machines world-wide, all available for anyone that needs them. But this happy situation will not survive the implementation of America’s own socialist healthcare system when it institutes its rationing rules as the English have done. Sooner rather than later advanced tools like the CyberKnife will be eschewed as too expensive by Obamacre bean counters and such advanced technology will dwindle and wither away despite the lives it could save.

This is what is meant when it is said that Obamacare features death panels. After all, a socialist healthcare system that won’t pay for advanced technology because it’s just too darn expensive — just as is happening right now in England — is a defacto death panel.

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My last article, Medicare is Already Rationing Care, focused on one small aspect of a much larger story, a story every American needs to know. The battle over the meaning of medicine began 2,500 years ago, not last spring.

In the late 1990’s I gave a lecture entitled “Post-Hippocratic Medicine in the Shadow of Nietzsche” in response to Peter Singer, the chair of bioethics at Princeton University. Singer had proposed we not consider humans “fully human” until they reached five weeks of age (after birth). During the first four weeks, he argued, we should allow the overt killing of infants with disabilities. This was “cost-effective.” It served the “greater good” by controlling the skyrocketing cost of healthcare.

For a decade I studied the question ”How did America reach a place in her history where we could seriously consider resurrecting the ancient practice of infanticide?” What I discovered changed my life.

For the past 2,500 years physicians served only one of two roles in Western culture. They either followed Hippocrates and served the wellbeing of their patients, or they followed Plato and served the greater welfare of the State. The philosophy of Peter Singer is not new—it has been with us for millennia. We once again stand at these same fated crossroads of Plato and Hippocrates as we debate the future of American healthcare.

Based on my study of history, philosophy, and current events, I feared we were rapidly returning to the world of Plato; a world where physicians worked at the behest of government, not solely for the patient. To help Americans understand what was about to transpire, I launched  Physicians for Reform in 2006.

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