AP – Amid a budget debate that will affect the health care of virtually every family, a new poll finds support for President Barack Obama’s overhaul at its lowest level since passage last year.

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Poll: Health care law support dips on budget woes
(AP)

AP – A federal judge who declared President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul unconstitutional ruled Thursday that states must continue implementing it while the case makes its way through the courts.

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Judge: States must continue with health overhaul
(AP)

AP – As a physician and thinker, Donald Berwick was known as one of the nation’s leading health care innovators. As President Barack Obama’s Medicare chief, he’s been a mystery man — until Wednesday.

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Medicare chief says he opposes rationing care
(AP)

In May, Health Care News discovered video footage of President Obama’s “redistributional” nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Donald Berwick, describing his health care views to an audience in Great Britain. We reported on the story , noting at the time that Berwick’s nomination had attracted “relatively little attention” thus far, and that it deserved more. The footage showed Berwick detailing his affections for the UK’s National Health Service, noting that: “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.” And more disturbingly, in the clip above: “Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.” Soon, everyone would know who Donald Berwick is after talk radio and the cable networks played Heartland’s exclusive video on the air. His controversial views became so widely known that President Obama took the highly unusual step of recess-appointing Berwick to head CMS before he had even one hearing before Congress, without any vetting of his views or his questionable funding sources . Even Democrats like Sen. Max Baucus criticized the move. Today, Donald Berwick will appear before Congress for the first time. I will be on hand at the hearing, live-blogging it on Somewhat Reasonable .

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Donald Berwick Finally Appears Before Congress

Somtimes no news is news…

On September 22, 2010, in Health Care, Uncategorized, by

That’s true about this clip of Jason Mattera from Human Events trying to pin down CMS head Donald Berwick on his love affair with nationalized health care. How does that line from the “Sound of Music” go? — “How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?” Something like that: H/T: Eyeblast.tv

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Somtimes no news is news…

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Obama’s rationing czar cuts and runs

On September 22, 2010, in Health Care, Uncategorized, by If Bush Did It

Our good friend and former Hot Air TV correspondent Jason Mattera, now editor-in-chief at Human Events , tried to ask White House recess appointee/Medicare-Medicaid chief Donald Berwick a few questions about his views. This is what public accountability in the age of Obama looks like: Pretty good Road Runner imitation there, Dr. Berwick!

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Obama’s rationing czar cuts and runs

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You all remember Donald Berwick, right? He’s the radical Obama tapped to run the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, despite Berwick’s past statements romanticizing Britain’s government-run health care and a 2009 declaration that we must “ration with our eyes open.” There was no way in hell Obama. . .

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Medicare Czar for Rationing Before He Was Against It

Doug Ross reports on the British cancer patient who fought the NHS, which denied life-saving drug treatment. ” Nikki Phelps, R.I.P. ” Nikki Phelp’s insurer was Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), the model for Barack Obama and his hand-picked appointment for the head of Medicare, Donald Berwick . RTWT . And at London’s Daily Mail , ” Virginity Repairs and an NHS That’s Lost Its Way “: Three months ago, Bill Phelps became a widower — he watched, helpless, as his cancer-stricken young wife Nikki’s life slowly ebbed away. Nikki, 37, a former teacher and mother of two-year-old twins, was denied the drug that might have saved her life, as it was deemed too costly by her NHS Primary Care Trust. I wonder, then, how Mr Phelps feels after reading yesterday’s report that the NHS is happy to foot the bill for young women to have ‘virginity repairs’? How can it be right that the mother of his two little boys was condemned to death by an NHS that put women’s desire to appear ‘untouched’ before the right of a mother to live as long as she can to raise her children? Latest figures show that there has been a 25 per cent rise in hymen replacement operations carried out on the NHS over the past four years. And, while there is no way of knowing the ethnic, cultural or religious background of the women undergoing these procedures, we do know that there has been a three-fold increase in Muslim women having the operation done privately — fearful that a future husband might discover they were not a virgin on their wedding night. Might some of the rise in NHS cases be for the same reason? The NHS insists that it carries out the procedure only ‘to secure physical or psychological health’. The same justification is often used for state-funded cosmetic procedures such as breast reductions. Whatever the case, I find it astonishing that at a time when women are dying because they can’t get cancer treatment, other women are having their virginity repairs paid for by the State. Let me be clear: I have every sympathy for a woman, of whatever cultural origin, who is so fearful of an oppressive partner that she would seek surgery to restore her ‘purity’. We must never forget that it’s certain men who are to blame for this, as they demand a standard of behaviour from their wives, sisters and daughters that they would not dream of applying to themselves. But how can we defend aesthetic breast procedures, sex- change operations or hymen repairs at a time of crippling national debt, and when we have some of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe? RELATED : ” A Victory Too Late: Mother Dies as the NHS Finally Agrees to Pay for Cancer Drugs .”

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Cancer Patient Nikki Phelps vs. Virginity Repairs in Britain — i.e., Islamic Hymen Replacement Surgery

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Free Donald Berwick!

On July 27, 2010, in barack obama, Health Care, Uncategorized, by If Bush Did It

Come on, Democrats. What are you so afraid of? Earlier this month, President Obama circumvented the Senate and recess-appointed health care rationing champion Don Berwick to head the Medicaid and Medicare programs. Democrats on Capitol Hill refuse to bring Berwick out for public hearings. Which closet at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have they locked Berwick in? It’s time to start a campaign: FREE DONALD BERWICK! More hide-and-seek games from the most transparent Democrat reign ever. Steven Ertelt at Life News and Connie Hair at Human Events : Like their counterparts in the Senate, House Democrats are refusing to hold a hearing on the recess appointment of rationing advocate Donald Berwick, whom President Barack Obama named to become the director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Obama appointed Berwick without a hearing or vote in the Senate and, even though he complained about that, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will not put together a hearing. Now, Connie Hair of the conservative newspaper Human Events reports House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin won’t hold one either. Both top Democrats are denying public hearings on Berwick even though he will be charged with helping lead the implementation of the new national health care plan Obama signed into law that concerns pro-life groups on abortion and rationing issues. Rep. Dave Camp, a pro-life Michigan lawmaker who is the leading Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, responded to Levin’s refusal to hold a hearing. “Apparently, House Democrats are really taking Speaker Pelosi’s ‘we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it’ style of governing to heart. Now, we have to hand the reins at CMS over to Dr. Berwick first so we can later find out what direction he will take Medicare and Medicaid,” he said, according to HE. “At a time when Democrats have implemented the most radical changes ever to the nation’s health care system, they are refusing to conduct the proper and necessary oversight required by the Committee,” Camp said. Commenter Rogue Cheddar: “They’re just rationing his public appear[a]nces, you know, to make the heart grow fonder.” *** Free Donald Berwick: A Disclose Act we can believe in!

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Free Donald Berwick!

How could even power-mad bureaucrats advocate socialized medicine? Don’t they know that they’ll need healthcare themselves one day? The answer — the death panels are for us peasants, not for our collectivist rulers: Donald Berwick, recess-appointed by President Obama to head Medicare and Medicaid, is a well-known advocate of health care rationing and admirer of Britain’s

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Donald Berwick Won’t Be Subjected to His Own Healthcare Rationing