http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/28/doctors-treatment-denial-smokers-obese

A majority of doctors support measures to deny treatment to smokers and the obese, according to a survey that has sparked a row over the NHS’s growing use of “lifestyle rationing”. Some 54% of doctors who took part said the NHS should have the right to withhold non-emergency treatment from patients who do not lose weight or stop smoking.

Dr Tim Ringrose, Doctors.net.uk’s chief executive, said the findings represented a significant shift in doctors’ thinking brought on by the NHS in England’s need to save £20bn by 2015. “This might appear to be only a slim majority of doctors in favour of limiting treatment to some patients who fail to look after themselves, but it represents a tectonic shift for a profession that has always sought to provide free healthcare from the cradle to the grave,” he said.

Smokers and obese people are already being denied operations such as IVF, breast reconstructions and a new hip or knee in some parts of England. The medical magazine Pulse last month found that 25 of 91 primary care trusts (PCTs) had introduced treatment bans for those groups since April 2011.

Bedfordshire PCT, for example, decided to withhold hip and knee surgery from obese patients until they had slimmed down by 10% or had a body mass index of under 35. Similarly, North Essex PCT obliged obese people to lose 5% of their bodyweight and keep the pounds shed for at least six months before receiving treatment.

But Dr Clare Gerada, chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said the survey findings and trend towards “lifestyle rationing” was “very disturbing”.

Charles-Henri Sansom

Lawmaker warns of the perils of independent thinking.

A Missouri state lawmaker says it’s a scary time in America, especially if you’re not fully on board with Washington’s socialist-leaning agenda.

“It’s kind of a dangerous time for people in America who might wind up disagreeing with the government,” Missouri Rep. Paul Curtman said regarding opposition for the National Defense Authorization Act.

After serving in the Marines for 10 years he realizes that under the federal government’s definition of “potential terrorist,” he qualified because he is a combat veteran and has conservative political views.

Read entire article  http://www.wnd.com/2012/03/lawmaker-warns-of-disagreeing-with-government/

Cam O’Uflage     Quebec City

Speaking at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) in San Francisco, Pulitzer Prize–winning political commentator George Will addressed what he labeled “the spreading web of dependency” that is choking the country.

  http://www.mddionline.com/article/george-will-aaos-medicine-swallowing-federal-budget (read the entire article)

Every 10 seconds, the U.S, government borrows another half a million dollars, explained George Will at the AAOS keynote. Quoting Hemingway–there are two ways to go bankrupt, gradually and suddenly. And we are headed towards the suddenly part.

Taxing the wealthy, which has been proposed as a solution to this financial problem is a bad idea, he said. “A country that has lost $7.4 trillion in home equity needs more than a fiddle like that,” he said, explaining that if all of the wealth of billionaires in the country was confiscated, it would not pay six months of the country’s debt.

The government is larger than most people understand it to be. One fifth of American personal income is derived from the government. “There are twice as many government workers as there are people working in manufacturing.”  And much of this government debt is fueled by medical expenses. Before the healthcare reform legislation was passed, 50 cents of every healthcare dollar was from the government, he said.

Every day, from now to 2030, 10,000 more Baby Boomers become eligible for Medicare and Social Security. Five years ago, Will turned 65 and received a Medicare card. “I showed it to my doctor who said, ‘That is wonderful George, now we’ll send your bills to your children.’” That may have been a joke but it is, however, how the welfare state works, he said.

The problem is becoming more urgent as the population gets older. In particular, it is especially expensive to take care of the “very old.” The average cost of taking care of an 85 year old is five times higher than the average costs of a 55 year old.

And there are fewer people to support the elderly financially. In 1940, there were 42 workers for every retiree. Today, there are 3.1 workers for every retiree. And by the time the Baby Boomers have retired, assuming that migrant workers continue to come to this country at a sustainable rate, there will be 2.1 workers for every retiree.

While medicine has progressed amazingly over the decades, at has come increasingly expensive. Will pointed out that he was born in a hospital in Illinois whose biggest expense was clean linen. Without things like MRI machines and expensive prescriptions, healthcare was relatively inexpensive. But, now, the country is spending close to 20% of GDP on healthcare

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair, I’ll fix it.”

Thus did Mitt Romney supposedly commit the gaffe of the month — for we are not to speak of the poor without unctuous empathy.

Yet, as Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation reports in “Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America’s Poor,” Mitt was more right about America’s magnanimity than those who bewail her alleged indifference.

First, who are the poor?

To qualify, a family of four in 2010 needed to earn less than $22,314. Some 46 million Americans, 15 percent of the population, qualified.

And in what squalor were America’s poor forced to live?

Well, 99 percent had a refrigerator and stove, two-thirds had a plasma TV, a DVD player and access to cable or satellite, 43 percent were on the Internet, half had a video game system like PlayStation.

Three-fourths of the poor had a car or truck, nine in 10 a microwave, 80 percent had air conditioning.

What about homelessness? Are not millions of America’s poor on the street at night or shivering in shelters or crowded tenements?

Well, actually, no. That is what we might call televised poverty. Of the real poor, fewer than 10 percent live in trailers, 40 percent live in apartments, and half live in townhouses or single-family homes.

Forty-one percent of poor families own their own homes.

But are they not packed in like sardines, one on top of another?

Not exactly. The average poor person’s home in America has 1,400 square feet — more living space than Europeans in 23 of the 25 wealthiest countries on the continent.

What about food? Do not America’s poor suffer chronically from malnutrition and hunger?

Not so. The daily consumption of proteins, vitamins and minerals of poor children is roughly the same as that of the middle class, and the poor consume more meat than the upper-middle class.

In fiscal year 2011, the U.S. government spent $910 billion on 70 means-tested assistance programs, which comes to an average of $9,000 per year for every lower-income person in the United States.

Lyndon Johnson told us this was the way to build a Great Society.

Did we? Federal and state spending on social welfare is approaching $1 trillion a year, $17 trillion since the Great Society was launched, not to mention private charity. But we have witnessed a headlong descent into social decomposition.

Half of all children born to women under 30 in America now are illegitimate. Three in 10 white children are born out of wedlock, as are 53 percent of Hispanic babies and 73 percent of black babies.

Rising right along with the illegitimacy rate is the drug-use rate, the dropout rate, the crime rate and the incarceration rate.

The family, cinder block of society, is disintegrating, and along with it, society itself. Writes Rector, “The welfare system is more like a ’safety bog’ than a safety net.”

The 19th-century statesman John C. Calhoun warned against allowing government to divide us into “tax-payers and tax-consumers.” This, he said, “would give rise to two parties and to violent conflicts and struggles between them, to obtain the control of the government.”

We are there, Mr. Calhoun, we are there.

Pat Buchanan is the author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?”

A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for  by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers

Edward Teach

Steep reduction in referrals by GPs suggests that patients are being given limited access to specialist clinical advice and will miss out on treatments.

Professor Norman Williams described the figures as “extremely disturbing”.

Rationing by stealth is occurring across the British National Health Service (Medicare).

This is extremely concerning for surgeons across the NHS.

Stopping referrals is only storing up problems for the future – a timebomb which will end up costing the NHS and taxpayer more in the long-term.

The rise in waiting times for orthopaedic surgery is an indicator that demand for surgery is not reducing and that the issue of rationing needs to be addressed

British Medical Association (BMA) was also worried.

A spokesman said: “The NHS is under a lot of pressure to do less, for example through referral management initiatives, which seem to be on the increase.

Health authorities tightening up on referral criteria insisting those who are obese go on weight control programmes before receiving surgery

Procedures including hip and knee replacements moved to ‘low priority’ lists.

British Orthopaedic Association is concerned that authorities were actively trying to put patients off surgery to save money.

There has, however, been an immense amount of work to reduce the number of referrals

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means.  I think the best way for doing food to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.  In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer.  And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

Benjamin Franklin “On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor” November 1766

The noose around Washington, D.C.’s neck continues to tighten, with no clear way to remove it. Behind the scenes, there is undoubtedly a rising sense of panic. That’s bad. The last thing you want is panicky people operating the far-reaching power levers of the state. 

But if push does come to shove, history teaches us, the government will not hesitate to clamp down on its subjects by whatever means necessary to preserve itself. And the best way to mute resistance is to prepare citizens ahead of time for escalating levels of police control. An enhanced law enforcement presence must be accepted as the new normal. But rest assured, it’s “for our own good.” 

That disclaimer has been used to hoodwink decent folk forever. But the truth is, what’s really up is the application of the time-tested political axiom that the more fearful people are, the easier they are to control. We’ve seen this principle at work for years. Politicians continually pass more intrusive laws; and police take increasing liberties with our rights, content that the courts will back them up… which they have done, as spineless judges hand them larger and larger cartes blanche to act however they please. The first ten amendments to the Constitution have been largely gutted. The things the Founders cared most passionately about have been tossed into the dustbin. 

We’re told: that our homes are no longer safe from no-knock entries, and warrants be damned (precisely the abuse that most riled the revolutionary colonists); that we should rat out our neighbors at the first sign that something is “amiss,” just as in any communist state you care to mention; and that it should be regarded as okay that warrants of all kinds are commonly served by gangs of helmeted thugs, covered with body armor and toting a dizzying array of lethal weapons. 

Readers of a certain age will remember when the police were called peace officers, as their job was primarily to maintain the peace. Who’s heard that quaint term lately? No, now they are law enforcement officers, and they are at war with a widening swath of the citizenry. And the targets of overwhelming force are not just murderers and rapists and armed robbers. SWAT teams are routinely dispatched to deal with bickering spouses, zoned-out pot smokers, parking ticket violators, and those delinquent in loan payments. 

Make no mistake about it: Authorities around the country have gotten the message from Washington that a complaisant populace is required. And they’re dutifully applying the heat. It may seem odd that they’re going after ever less-violent people, but it makes perfect sense. It’s in the government’s interest to suggest that all of us are potential suspects. 

Take, for instance, the case of Rawesome Foods in California, a private buying club dedicated to bringing the most wholesome, natural food products to its members. Does that sound like a criminal conspiracy? It did to local and federal officials, who staged a joint SWAT-style raid on the club last week. Without a warrant, officers entered the storefront, seize cash, destroyed inventory, and jailed the club’s founder 

But if those in power are really serious about creating a docile population, there is absolutely no better way to go about it than criminalizing children. Yes, children. 

No, I’m not talking about SWAT raids here. But in a way, this is even more insidious, because the effort is directed at teaching kids at an early age that Big Brother is always watching and that you’d better be sure you obey the letter of every law (as if anyone could possibly know what they all are) or you’re in for trouble with the Man.

This has been - and I swear I am not making this up - the summer of the lemonade-stand bust. Yep, children’s lemonade stands have been closed down in states all over the country, including California, Oregon, and Texas - and even, astonishingly, in such bedrock, sensible-values American heartland states as Wisconsin and Iowa. 

The latest of these important police actions came in small-town Georgia, where the local cops advised the kids in question that they had to cease and desist from selling their lemonade until they forked over $50 a day for a business license. Watch this news report only if you have a strong stomach and your outrage button is not easily pushed. 

That video is instructive in oh so many wonderful ways. 

First, take a good look at the head cop as she explains their actions. “The law is the law” is about as close as you can get to “I was only following orders.” Squint your eyes a little. She’d look perfect decked out in SS lightning bolts, wouldn’t she? 

Next, consider the little girl who says, “… but we had to listen to the cops.” She’s learned her lesson. 

Then there’s mom. We’re sure that if she were one of our readers that stand would’ve been up and running the next day, and every day until the police were forced to take those kids to court over this.  But not here. This mom is backing away from the issue, saying, “I’m trying to teach my kids good, and I don’t think it’ll teach ‘em good if I keep on an’ on with this.” Right, the lesson wasn’t only for the children. 

Finally, in addition to instilling fear of authority in our most impressionable citizens, there’s an added kicker to this incident. What better way to kill the entrepreneurial spirit in its cradle and set us up for the day when we all work for the state? 

Question: What’s the point when we finally announce that we’re not going to take it any more?  If that point isn’t when they go after our kids, then there isn’t one. 

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years after diagnosis:
U.S.              65%
England       46%
Canada         42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received treatment within six months:
U.S.              93%
England       15%
Canada         43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it within six months:
U.S.              90%
England       15%
Canada         43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within one month:
U.S.              77%
England       40%
Canada         43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:
U.S.              71%
England       14%
Canada        18%

Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in “excellent health”:
U.S.              12%
England         2%
Canada          6%

 Thank you for this forum,  Timofeevich Khalasnikov