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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; doctors</title>
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		<title>Canada: No Religious Liberty for Doctors</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/lea-singh/canada-no-religious-liberty-for-doctors/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=canada-no-religious-liberty-for-doctors</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 16 Jul 2014 04:30:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lea Singh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[canada]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Contraception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doctors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[religious freedom]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=236296</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the future of freedom in Canada looks bleaker and bleaker.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/gg.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-236297" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/gg-450x290.jpg" alt="gg" width="338" height="218" /></a>Another attack on religious freedom is under way in Canada, this time against doctors in the province of Ontario. The <a href="http://www.cpso.on.ca/">College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario</a> is reviewing its <a href="http://www.cpso.on.ca/policies-publications/policy/physicians-and-the-ontario-human-rights-code">human rights code guidelines</a>, and the public response has been explosive. Many people want the College to change its present practice of permitting doctors to opt out of referring or prescribing treatments that violate their ethics or religious faith.</p>
<p>This is not a case of liberal intellectuals and unelected leaders reducing our freedoms without the consent of the public. Judging by the slew of negative comments to stories in the mainstream media, the public is on the side of clamping down on doctors. It’s disturbing to see that of the nearly 9000 votes submitted in the <a href="http://policyconsult.cpso.on.ca/?page_id=3403">College’s online poll</a>, around 67% said “no” to the question: “Do you think a physician should be allowed to refuse to provide a patient with a treatment or procedure because it conflicts with the physician’s religious or moral beliefs?”</p>
<p>Why are people so keen to end religious freedom for our doctors? The media has been harping on the case of 25-year-old Kate Desjardins, an Ottawa woman who was denied a birth control pill prescription at a walk-in clinic. The doctor she consulted, Edmond Kyrillos, happened to be a practicing Catholic who distributes a letter to all prospective patients, informing them that “because of reasons of my own medical judgment as well as professional ethical concerns and religious values, I only provide one form of birth control, Natural Family Planning.”</p>
<p>Canada’s free health care system ensures patients would never be dependent on a doctor like Kyrillos &#8211; any patient can walk into any Emergency Room or Public Health Clinic and receive the prescriptions or referrals they are seeking, and those who want abortions don’t even need a referral. Ms. Desjardins’ inconvenience was minor, since she lives in a major Canadian city and another walk-in clinic happened to be only several hundred meters away.  But Ms. Desjardins <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/02/06/birth-control-letter-ottawa_n_4735163.html">went public</a> with the letter and claimed embarrassment at having to go elsewhere for her prescription.</p>
<p>Another example that has been brought up in the media is the instance of remote rural locations where there might be only one doctor within the range of reasonable travel. But this problem is resolved under the existing policy, since doctors already have a duty to treat patients who lack access to alternate care. Catholic doctors who don’t want to prescribe contraception need to stay away from postings in the middle of the woods.</p>
<p>This debate is not really about health care at all. It’s actually about religious accommodation, and what’s becoming obvious is that our society is growing less tolerant of expressions of religious faith in professional life. Perhaps more specifically, we are getting increasingly annoyed with the Catholic views on contraception, and we don’t want them in our faces when we go to the doctor. I hesitate to use the term “witch hunt,” but it is starting to seem accurate in this case.</p>
<p>The Charter still protects freedom of religion as fundamental to our society, but few people these days seem to understand what freedom really means. If the public can become convinced that they are still free when they can only think but can’t act on their most fundamental beliefs, then the future of freedom in Canada looks bleak.</p>
<p>The Ontario Human Rights Commission would like nothing better than to chip away at religious freedom for doctors, and it looks like the public won’t stand in their way. When the College last reviewed its human rights policy in 2008, the Ontario Human Rights Commission <a href="http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/submission-ontario-human-rights-commission-college-physicians-and-surgeons-ontario-regarding-draft-0">urged</a> the College to clamp down on doctors <a href="http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/submission-ontario-human-rights-commission-college-physicians-and-surgeons-ontario-regarding-draft-0#sthash.bsaDMFlQ.dpuf">saying</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“It is [our] position that doctors, as providers of services that are not religious in nature, must essentially &#8216;check their personal views at the door&#8217; in providing medical care.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Rolling up religious freedom into the confines of our heads is as unCanadian as it is totalitarian. No dictator can control minds, but real freedom concerns the ability to conform our actions to our deepest values. As Canada&#8217;s Supreme Court stated in <a href="http://scc.lexum.org/decisia-scc-csc/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/43/index.do"><em>R v Big M Drug Mart</em></a>, in what is still considered the definitive statement on this subject:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The essence of the concept of freedom of religion is the right to entertain such religious beliefs as a person chooses, the right to declare religious beliefs openly and without fear of hindrance or reprisal, and the right to manifest religious belief by worship and practice or by teaching and dissemination.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Canada has a long history of tolerating various religious practices and differences, such as accommodating Sikh RCMP officers wearing turbans at work. But if we turn the tide against religious accommodation, expect to see secularism enforced in other professions and against other religious groups. Canada as a whole stands to become less free.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </strong><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank"><strong>Click here</strong></a><strong>.   </strong></p>
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		<title>The Gifts of Jahi</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/michellemalkin/the-gifts-of-jahi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-gifts-of-jahi</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/michellemalkin/the-gifts-of-jahi/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Jan 2014 05:00:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Malkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brain dead]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doctors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hospital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jahi McMath]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life support]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new year]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tonsillectomy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214456</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A tragic lesson in the horrific union of the Nanny State and Big Medicine. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jahi.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-214458" alt="Jahi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jahi.jpg" width="224" height="203" /></a>New Year&#8217;s Day should be a time of fresh beginnings and forward motion. But for the family of 13-year-old Jahi McMath, the holiday season has been suspended in a cloud of unfathomable pain and suffering: A routine tonsillectomy gone wrong. A beautiful child declared &#8220;brain dead.&#8221; Lawyers, TV cameras, tears.</p>
<p>The McMaths are fighting for life. On Monday, they won a court order that prevents Children&#8217;s Hospital of Oakland from pulling the plug on Jahi until Jan. 7. Her relatives have been attacked as &#8220;publicity hounds&#8221; for doing everything possible to raise awareness about the young girl&#8217;s tragic case. They&#8217;ve been criticized as troublemakers for challenging powerful hospital officials. They&#8217;ve been labeled &#8220;selfish&#8221; and ignorant because they are praying for a miracle.</p>
<p>Why, many observers ask, don&#8217;t they just &#8220;accept reality&#8221; and let go?</p>
<p>As the mother of a 13-year-old girl, I would have done everything Jahi&#8217;s mom has done to this point. Everything. Here&#8217;s reality: Children&#8217;s Hospital faces serious malpractice questions about its care of Jahi. Hospital execs have a glaring conflict of interest in wielding power over her life support. According to relatives, medical officials callously referred to Jahi as &#8220;dead, dead, dead&#8221; and dismissed the child as a &#8220;body.&#8221;</p>
<p>The McMath family refused to be rushed or pushed around. They demanded respect for their loved one. I say more power to them.</p>
<p>There are plenty of reasons to question the medical establishment&#8217;s handling of catastrophic cases involving brain injury and &#8220;brain death.&#8221; In 2008, doctors were dead certain that 21-year-old Zack Dunlop was legally deceased after a horrible ATV accident. Tests showed there was no blood flow to his brain. His hospital issued a death notice. Authorities prepared to harvest his organs. But family members were not convinced. A cousin who happened to be a nurse tested Zack&#8217;s reflexes on his own one last time as the hospital swooped in. The &#8220;brain dead&#8221; &#8220;body&#8221; responded. Forty-eight days later, the supposedly impossible happened: &#8220;Brain dead&#8221; Zack Dunlop walked out of the hospital and lived to tell about his miraculous recovery on the Today Show.</p>
<p>The immense pressure Jahi&#8217;s family faces to give up and give in reminded me of another child written off by medical and government officials: Haleigh Poutre.</p>
<p>She&#8217;s the miracle child who was nearly beaten to death by her barbaric stepfather. Hooked to a ventilator in a comatose state, she was then nearly condemned to death by Massachusetts medical experts and the state&#8217;s criminally negligent child welfare bureaucracy, which hastily declared her to be in a hopeless vegetative state and wanted to pull the plug on her life.</p>
<p>The &#8220;experts&#8221; were wrong. Haleigh breathed on her own; a caring team of therapists nursed her back to health. Soon, she was brushing her hair and feeding herself. She lived to testify against her abusive stepfather, now behind bars. Her survival is a stark warning against blind, yielding trust in Big Nanny and Big Medicine.</p>
<p>We don&#8217;t know what God has planned for Jahi. But I do know this: America has become a throwaway culture where everything and everyone — from utensils to diapers to cameras to babies — is disposable. Elites sneer at the sanctity of life. The Terri Schiavo case brought out the worst, most dehumanizing impulses of American medical ethics debates. And from the attacks I&#8217;ve seen on the McMath family, little has changed.</p>
<p>Schiavo&#8217;s brother, Bobby, knows exactly how it feels to battle the culture of death and medical expediency. His group, Terri&#8217;s Network, and other pro-life organizations are trying to help with Jahi&#8217;s transfer to a long-term care facility. In the meantime, Jahi&#8217;s plight serves as a teachable moment for those with ears, eyes and hearts open. This is a gift. &#8220;Families and individuals must make themselves aware of what so-called &#8216;brain death&#8217; is and what it is not,&#8221; Schindler advises. &#8220;Additionally, families and individuals must educate themselves regarding their rights as patients, the advance documentation that must be completed prior to any medical procedure as well as how to ensure best any patient&#8217;s rights.&#8221;</p>
<p>Jahi&#8217;s story should also prompt family discussions about living wills, durable powers of attorney, &#8220;do not resuscitate&#8221; orders, revocable trusts and advance directives. It&#8217;s never too early to broach these uncomfortable matters of life and death.</p>
<p>I want to thank Naila Winkfield and the McMath family for not &#8220;letting go&#8221; so easily. Their plight is every parent&#8217;s worst nightmare. Their fight reaches beyond ideology, race, and class. The united front of the family and the public testaments of their faith in God are gifts. The Instagram image of Naila clasping her daughter&#8217;s hand at her hospital bedside — the hope, the desperation, the abiding love — is universal. At the start of 2014, the greatest gift of Jahi is her transcendent reminder that all life is precious. Let it not be taken for granted.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Obamacare: The Unimaginable Suffering That Awaits Us</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/john-perazzo/obamacare-the-unimaginable-suffering-that-awaits-us/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-the-unimaginable-suffering-that-awaits-us</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/john-perazzo/obamacare-the-unimaginable-suffering-that-awaits-us/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Nov 2013 04:43:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Perazzo]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doctors]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free-market]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[universal healthcare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209618</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The horrifying direction Obama and company are leading us to. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/article-0-002ADAD300000258-120_468x286.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209619" alt="Abortion clinic - picture posed  by model" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/article-0-002ADAD300000258-120_468x286.jpg" width="257" height="199" /></a>There is a vital reason for all Americans to take a close look at how, specifically, the various government-run, single-payer healthcare systems around the world have already affected the lives of the people living under them. This is vital because Barack Obama and the Democrats actually have their sights set on creating precisely such a system here in the United States. For them, Obamacare is, and always has been, nothing more than a stepping stone toward their ultimate goal of a single-payer leviathan administered entirely by the federal government. Indeed, they&#8217;ve been quite clear about their intentions:</p>
<p>• In early August, Senator Harry Reid was asked whether his goal was to eventually use Obamacare as a springboard to a single-payer system. “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes,” he <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/08/10/sen-harry-reid-obamacare-absolutely-a-step-toward-a-single-payer-system/">replied</a>. “What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever.”</p>
<p>• In late October, Rep. John Conyers <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/10/21/Conyers-Obamacare-Very-Small-and-Modest-Bill-Compared-To-The-Universal-Healthcare-Thats-Coming">stated</a> that Obamacare was just “a very small and modest bill,” and that Congressional Democrats were already contemplating ways to pass “universal healthcare for everybody, single payer.” “That&#8217;s what the new direction is,” Conyers affirmed, even as the supposedly “small and modest” Obamacare project was proving to be nothing more than a colossal lie administered with inexpressible incompetence.</p>
<p>• Nancy Pelosi, too, is on record <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/archive/item/88476:final-health-care-bill-vote-due-as-early-as-next-week">stating</a>: “I have supported single payer for longer than many of you have been—since you&#8217;ve been born, than you&#8217;ve lived on the face of the earth. So I think, I have always thought, that was the way to go.”</p>
<p>• Kathleen Sebelius, the chief architect of Obamacare&#8217;s pathetic rollout last month, has candidly <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/12/flashback-sebelius-called-for-a-single-payer-system-eventually/">declared</a> herself to be “all for a single-payer [healthcare] system eventually.” On October 7, she <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/08/stewart-to-sebelius-on-health-care-law-am-i-a-stupid-man/">told</a> interviewer <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1939">Jon Stewart</a> that “if we could have perhaps figured out a pathway [to single-payer], that may have been a reasonable solution.”<br />
And of course President Obama himself has been unambiguous about his own views on this matter:</p>
<p>• At an AFL-CIO conference in 2003, Obama <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/10/29/Flashback-Obama-s-Campaign-to-Transition-to-Single-Payer-Health-Care-VIDEO">said</a>: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care plan&#8230;. &#8216;Everybody in. Nobody out.&#8217; &#8230; That&#8217;s what I&#8217;d like to see, but as all of you know, we may not get there immediately.”</p>
<p>• At an <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6535">SEIU</a> Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007, <a href="http://sroblog.com/2009/08/04/shock-uncovered-obama-in-his-own-words-saying-his-health-care-plan-will-eliminate-private-insurance/">Obama declared</a>: “My commitment is to make sure that we&#8217;ve got universal healthcare for all Americans by the end of my first term as President&#8230;. But I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There&#8217;s going to be, potentially, some transition process. I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out &#8230;”</p>
<p>• On August 4, 2007, Obama <a href="http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2010/03/obama-and-single-payer-system.html">announced</a> that he planned to pass healthcare reform legislation and then “build off that system to … make it more rational.” “By the way,” he added, “Canada did not start off immediately with a single payer system. They had a similar transition step.”</p>
<p>• In the summer of 2008, Obama <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/08/19/obama-touts-single-payer-system">said</a>: “If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system.”</p>
<p>• And in June 2009, Obama <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35272">told</a> an American Medical Association audience that “there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well.”<br />
So, now that we know definitively what Obama and the Democrats ultimately want, let us look at the track record of single-payer systems around the world, so that we can see exactly what is in store for us if we follow the counsel of these masterminds. A monumentally important 2008 <a href="http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-613.pdf">Cato Institute study</a> offers keen insights into those systems:<sup> </sup></p>
<p><b>Great Britain</b></p>
<p>Under Britain&#8217;s highly centralized National Health Service (NHS), some 750,000 ailing and desperate people are currently on waiting lists for admission to a hospital. More than half of all British patients must wait more than 18 weeks to receive care of any kind. For most specialties, only 30 to 50 percent of patients are treated within that time frame. For trauma and orthopedics patients, the figure is just 20 percent. Cancer patients must sometimes wait as long as eight months for treatment, and roughly 40 percent of them never even get to see an oncologist. Many who were considered treatable when first diagnosed are incurable by the time their treatment is finally made available. Indeed, this is the sad fate of nearly one-in-five Britons with colon cancer. In addition, many life-saving procedures such as kidney dialysis and open-heart surgery are subject to explicit rationing, and treatment is often denied altogether to patients who are judged too ill or too old for the procedures to be worth the costs.</p>
<p><b>Canada</b></p>
<p>Physicians and modern medical equipment (such as MRI units and CT scanners) are in short supply nationwide, and at any given time as many as 800,000 Canadians are awaiting necessary medical treatment. Across all specialties and all procedures (emergency, non-urgent, and elective), it takes an average of 17.7 weeks for a patient to go through the process of seeing his or her general practitioner (GP), getting a referral to consult with a specialist, and receiving final treatment. And that figure does not even include the time a patient must wait to see a GP in the first place. Canada&#8217;s longest waiting periods are for procedures such as hip or knee replacements and cataract surgery, which could arguably be classified as elective. According to the journal <i>Health Affairs</i>, a 65-year-old Canadian man requiring a routine hip replacement must wait more than <a href="http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2004/09/01/canadas-medical-nightmare">six months</a> for this surgery. In August 2006, then-Canadian Medical Association president Brian Day <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/international/americas/26canada.html?_r=0">lamented</a> that “this is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week, and in which humans can wait two to three years.”</p>
<p>There are likewise protracted waiting periods for more urgent procedures such as neurosurgery and vascular surgery, where delays can dramatically affect a patient&#8217;s chances of survival. A study published in the <i>Canadian Medical Association Journal</i> noted that 50 patients in Ontario alone had recently died while they were on the waiting list for cardiac catheterization. In an address to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, University of Ottawa Heart Institute cardiologist <a href="http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2004/09/01/canadas-medical-nightmare">Richard F. Davies</a> noted that in a single year, 71 Ontario patients had died before being able to undergo coronary artery bypass graft surgery, while another 121 had been “removed from the [waiting] list permanently because they had become medically unfit for surgery,” and 44 others had left the province to have their surgery performed elsewhere—usually in the United States.</p>
<p><b>Italy</b></p>
<p>Because cutting-edge instruments such as MRI units and CT scanners in Italy are in short supply as compared to the United States, Italian patients must wait, on average, 70 days for a mammogram, 74 days for an endoscopy, and 23 days for a sonogram. Moreover, the nation&#8217;s public hospitals are largely considered substandard, unsanitary, and overcrowded.</p>
<p><b>Spain</b></p>
<p>Because Spain has a severe shortage of primary care physicians and nurses, patients are not free to select their own healthcare providers. Rather, they are assigned a primary care doctor from a list of physicians in their local community, and if they need more specialized care, they must obtain a referral from that doctor. On average, Spaniards must wait approximately 65 days to get an appointment with a specialist—including, for instance, 81 days to see a gynecologist and 71 days to see a neurologist. Similarly, they must wait an average of 62 days for a prostectomy and 123 days for hip-replacement surgery. And a number of vital health services that U.S. citizens take for granted—such as rehabilitation, convalescence, and care for those with terminal illness—are virtually unavailable in Spain, where public nursing homes, retirement homes, hospices, and convalescence facilities are in limited supply.</p>
<p><b>Portugal</b></p>
<p>Portugal has only one general practitioner per 1,500 people in its population, and only about one-seventh as many MRI units per capita as the United States. Thus, despite guarantees of “universal coverage,” waiting lists are so long and so prevalent that the European Observatory on Health Systems says that they resemble “de facto rationing.” More than 150,000 Portuguese are currently on waiting lists for surgery, out of a population of just 10.6 million. Further, there is little freedom to choose one&#8217;s own doctor anywhere in the country; patients may change their GP only by applying in writing to the NHS and explaining their reasons.</p>
<p><b>Norway</b></p>
<p>Long and growing waiting lists are a serious problem in Norway, where citizens must consult a government list in order to choose a general practitioner who subsequently acts as a gatekeeper for whatever specialty services and providers they may need. On any given day, some 280,000 Norwegians (out of a population of just 4.6 million) are waiting for care. The average wait for hip-replacement surgery is more than four months; for a prostectomy, nearly three months; and for a hysterectomy, more than two months. Approximately 23 percent of all patients referred for hospital admission must wait longer than 90 days before they can be admitted.</p>
<p><b>Greece</b></p>
<p>Greece has fewer than one-eighth the number of general practitioners that would be required to meet the overall population&#8217;s demand. Patients routinely wait as long as six months for surgery, five months for an outpatient appointment with specialists in fields like hypertension or neurology, and 30 days for just a simple blood test. The country&#8217;s public hospitals are widely considered substandard; most suffer from severe staffing shortages caused, in large part, by low pay.</p>
<p><b>Cuba</b></p>
<p>Leftists revere Communist Cuba for numerous reasons, not the least of which is the government-run, universal healthcare system that was put in place by Fidel Castro. Many of these admirers—among the most notable of whom is the filmmaker Michael Moore—form their impressions of the Cuban healthcare system from its tourist hospitals, which are, by any standards, clean, well staffed, and of excellent quality. Indeed Cuba, in an effort to attract wealthy foreigners who are willing to spend their money on healthcare services, has pioneered the practice of so-called “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism">health tourism</a>” through agencies such as <a href="http://www.haciendapublishing.com/articles/socialized-medicine-cuba-2002-part-ii-other-hidden-faces-cuban-medicine">SERVIMED</a>, which markets Cuban medical services abroad. Calling Cuba “the ideal destination for your health,” SERVIMED frankly admits to being “a tourist subsystem.”</p>
<p>But after providing for the needs of affluent foreigners (and of the country&#8217;s top government officials), the Cuban healthcare system has little left for the general public. Hospitals for ordinary Cubans are typically <a href="http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/socialized-medicine.htm">unsanitary</a>. Syringes are frequently used to inject multiple patients without any sterilization, and “disposable” gloves are likewise used and reused. Consequently, infectious diseases such an impetigo and hepatitis—and infestations such as scabies, lice and fungal diseases—are commonplace in the Cuban hospital population.<br />
Moreover, Cuban hospitals have serious <a href="http://capitalismmagazine.com/2003/04/bad-cuban-medicine/">shortages</a> of antibiotics, insulin, heart drugs, blood-pressure meters, disinfectants, and even clean water and soap.</p>
<p>It is noteworthy that in the pre-Castro years of the 1950s, the Cuban population as a whole had access to <a href="http://capitalismmagazine.com/2003/04/bad-cuban-medicine/">outstanding</a> medical care through association clinics (<i>clinicas mutualistas</i>) which predated the American concept of health maintenance organizations by decades, as well as through private clinics. At that time the Cuban medical system ranked among the best in the world, as evidenced by the fact that it had Latin America&#8217;s lowest infant-mortality rate—comparable to Canada&#8217;s and better than those of France, Japan, and Italy.</p>
<p>So the evidence is crystal clear. As the Cato Institute <a href="http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-613.pdf">puts it</a>, “In countries weighted heavily toward government control, people are most likely to face waiting lists, rationing, restrictions on physician choice, and other obstacles to care.” By contrast, “<a href="http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-613.pdf">those countries</a> with national health care systems that work better, such as France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, are successful to the degree that they incorporate market mechanisms such as competition, cost-consciousness, market prices, and consumer choice, and eschew centralized government control. In other words, socialized medicine works—as long as it isn’t socialized medicine.”</p>
<p>Yet socialized medicine is <i>precisely</i> the direction in which Obama and Democrats wish, beyond any shadow of a doubt, to steer the United States of America. What, then, does this tell us about the judgment and the motivations of these men and women?</p>
<p>Some questions simply answer themselves.</p>
<p><strong>Don&#8217;t miss this week&#8217;s <em>Glazov Gang</em>, which explores <em><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frontpagemag-com/to-lie-for-obamacare-on-the-glazov-gang/ ">To Lie for ObamaCare</a></em>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Obamacare&#8217;s Electronic Medical Records Wreck</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michellemalkin/obamacares-electronic-medical-records-wreck/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacares-electronic-medical-records-wreck</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/michellemalkin/obamacares-electronic-medical-records-wreck/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Oct 2013 04:20:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michelle Malkin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208449</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The other side of the health care reform disaster. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1375832279000-E-RECORDS-1308061939_4_3.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208451" alt="1375832279000-E-RECORDS-1308061939_4_3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1375832279000-E-RECORDS-1308061939_4_3-450x337.jpg" width="315" height="236" /></a>Dr. Nicholas DiNubile, a Philadelphia orthopedic surgeon, has a timely reminder for everyone encountering the federal health care exchange meltdown: &#8220;If you think signing up for Obamacare is a nightmare, ask your doctor how the EMR mandate is going.&#8221;</p>
<p>Bingo.</p>
<p>The White House finally acknowledged the spectacular public disaster of Obamacare&#8217;s Internet exchange infrastructure during Monday&#8217;s Rose Garden infomercial. But President Shamwow and his sales team are AWOL on the bureaucratic ravages of the federal electronic medical records mandate. Modernized data collection is a worthy goal, of course. But distracted doctors are seeing &#8220;more pixels than patients,&#8221; Dr. DiNubile observes, and the EMR edict is foisting &#8220;dangerous user-unfriendly technology&#8221; on physicians and patients.</p>
<p>Instead of concentrating on care, doctors face exhausting regulatory battles over the definition of &#8220;meaningful use&#8221; of technology, skyrocketing costs and unwarranted Big Brother intrusions on the practice of medicine.</p>
<p>As I reported last year, Obamacare&#8217;s top-down, tax-subsidized, job-killing, privacy-undermining electronic record-sharing scheme has been a big fat bust. More than $4 billion in &#8220;incentives&#8221; has been doled out to force doctors and hospitals to convert and upgrade by 2015. But favored EMR vendors, including Obama bundler Judy Faulkner&#8217;s Epic Systems, have undermined rather than enhanced interoperability. Oversight remains lax. And after hyping the alleged benefits for nearly a decade, the RAND Corporation finally &#8216;fessed up that its cost-savings predictions of $81 billion a year — used repeatedly to support the Obama EMR mandate — were (like every other Obamacare promise) vastly overstated.</p>
<p>In June, the Annals of Emergency Medicine published a study warning that the &#8220;rush to capitalize on the huge federal investment of $30 billion for the adoption of electronic medical records led to some unfortunate and unintended consequences&#8221; tied to &#8220;communication failure, poor data display, wrong order/wrong patient errors and alert fatigue.&#8221; Also this summer, Massachusetts reported that 60 percent of doctors could not meet the EMR mandate and face potential loss of their licenses in 2015. And a few weeks ago, the American College of Physicians pleaded with the feds to delay the mandate&#8217;s data collection, certification and reporting requirements.</p>
<p>Dr. Hayward K. Zwerling, an internal medicine physician in Massachusetts who is also president of ComChart Medical Software, blasted the Obamacare EMR mandate in a recent open letter: &#8220;As the developer of an EMR, I sincerely believe that a well-designed EMR is a useful tool for many practices. However, the federal and state government&#8217;s misguided obsession to stipulate which features must be in the EMRs, and how the physician should use the EMRs in the exam room places the politicians in the middle of the exam room between the patient and the physician, and seriously disrupts the physician-patient relationship.&#8221; Zwerling&#8217;s call to arms appealed to fellow doctors to pressure the feds to repeal the mandate. &#8220;It is past time that physicians reclaim control of their offices, if not the practice of medicine.&#8221;</p>
<p>As I&#8217;ve mentioned previously, my own primary care physician in Colorado Springs quit her regular practice and converted to &#8220;concierge care&#8221; because of the EMR imposition. Dr. Henry Smith, a Pennsylvania pulmonary doctor, also walked away. &#8220;Faced with the implementation costs and skyrocketing overhead in general,&#8221; he told me, &#8220;I finally threw in the towel and closed my practice.&#8221; He said, &#8220;As EMRs proliferate, and increased Medicare scrutiny looms, medical documentation is evolving from its original goal of recording what actually was going on with a patient, and what the provider was actually thinking, to sterile boilerplate documents designed to justify the highest billing codes.&#8221;</p>
<p>Dr. Michael Laidlaw of Rocklin, Calif., told EHR Practice Consultants that he abandoned the Obamacare EMR &#8220;incentive&#8221; program &#8220;when I realized that I spent the first two to five minutes of each visit endlessly clicking a bunch of garbage to make all the green lights show up on the (meaningful use) meter. I said to myself: &#8216;I&#8217;m not wasting precious seconds of my life and my patients&#8217; time to ensure some database gets filled with data. I didn&#8217;t go into medicine for this. It is not benefiting my patients or me. I hate it.&#8217; I actually refused to take the $10K-plus this year. I have even accepted that I would rather be penalized in the future. What is worth the most to me is AUTONOMY.&#8221;</p>
<p>Let me underscore that again: Doctors face steep penalties if they can&#8217;t meet the radical technology goals imposed by the very same glitch-plagued Obamacare bureaucrats who now need an emergency &#8220;tech surge&#8221; to fix their own failed info-tech Titanic. The Obamacare wrecking ball has only just begun.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Doctors Fear for Medicine’s Future</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/tait-trussell/doctors-fear-for-medicine%e2%80%99s-future/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=doctors-fear-for-medicine%25e2%2580%2599s-future</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:04:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tait Trussell]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=139425</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Physicians in national survey say they face momentous choices.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/doctor-patient-communication.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-139461" title="doctor-patient-communication" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/doctor-patient-communication.gif" alt="" width="375" height="249" /></a>In a <a href="http://www.dpmafoundation.org/physician-attitudes-on-medicine.html">new national poll,</a> doctors say they must now decide if they can continue practicing medicine in their patients’ best interest or bow to bureaucratically-set restrictions that take precedence over patient necessities. Another stark choice some doctors ponder is: Can I afford to quit medicine altogether? The language of respondents is stark and often angry.</p>
<p>The survey of 36,000 physicians by the Doctor Patient Medical Association Foundation (DPMAF), with a better than average return, revealed a most disturbing future for the health care of all Americans.</p>
<p>Doctors responded from 45 states. (130 didn’t identify their specific geographical location). Most (81 percent) were in small group practice. Most have been in practice for from 11 to 30 years. The survey, conducted by fax and online, was completed in June. Of those responding:</p>
<ul>
<li>90 percent say the medical system is “on the wrong track.”</li>
<li>83 percent say they are “thinking about quitting.”</li>
<li>61 percent said the system “challenges their ethics.”</li>
<li>70 percent say “reducing government would be the single best fix.”</li>
</ul>
<p>A Texas Orthopedist wrote, “I have been in practice 28 years and medicine is now the worst for doctors it has ever been.”  A Wisconsin anesthesiologist wrote, “I would not consider letting my teenagers become physicians.” A Kansas sports medicine doctor wrote: “Medicine is circling the drain. Heaven help us as we age.”</p>
<p>“I did not go to school for 25-plus years to be a computer programmer for the federal government,” testily responded a Florida ophthalmologist.</p>
<p>A Missouri physician concluded, “Medicine is no longer about treating and taking care of patients. I spend more time telling patients about additional paperwork they need to fill in.”</p>
<p>Two out of three surveyed answered that electronic medical records (EMR) [required by ObamaCare] compromise medical privacy and confidentiality. A neurologist from Missouri writes, “Electronic medical records&#8230;should not be connected to the outside world to avoid confidentiality abuse.” A Massachusetts psychiatrist added: “EMR has no place in psychiatric practice.”</p>
<p>A Florida endocrinologist branded ObamaCare as “a monstrous bill designed to give government COMPLETE control over our lives.” A New Hampshire doctor practicing internal medicine wrote: “Government gets away with rationing by making doctors the scapegoats that an <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2011/05/24/obamacare%25E2%2580%2599s-accountable-care-organizations-leave-much-to-be-desired/">ACO</a> made a profit by skimping on care.” He referred to the Accountable Care Organizations (ACO). They take up only seven pages of the massive Affordable Care Act. Yet they have become one of the most confusing provisions. This latest model for delivering services offers primary-care doctors and hospitals financial incentives to provide “quality” care (as defined by bureaucrats) to Medicare beneficiaries while clamping down on costs. It is one of the more controversial provisions of ObamaCare, among the 150 programs, agencies, and boards in the law.</p>
<p>One physician who separated himself as much as possible from government intrusion wrote happily: “I opted out of Medicare and Medicaid for 12 years now as an internal medicine practitioner. I have never been busier, deliver a high quality service, am financially secure, and cannot wait to go to work every day,” according to that Minnesota internist.</p>
<p>Doctors also scoff at declared cost-cutting tactics falsely promised by the Obama Administration. They are quite “unlikely to do so,” many said. “Only the free market will fix this mess,” wrote a Texas OB-GYN.</p>
<p>Two out of three physicians answering the survey say they are “just squeaking by or are losing money, and half expect that financial situation to worsen in the next five years. A Pennsylvania ophthalmologist wrote, “As a solo doc, I am being forced out of my practice by the bureaucracy&#8230;Those that suffer will be the patients.”</p>
<p>A Washington State family practitioner said: “I would be willing to do charity care weekly for the poor and uninsured if there was tort reform.”</p>
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