Speaking as a physician boarded in Family Medicine, I have this to say to you and anyone else who regards this as “tripe”: Sit down and shut up before you make a greater fool of yourself. You have no idea of how utterly screwed you are if this takes effect as planned. I’ve run a successful solo medical practice for over ten years. I make my living at it and I *know* where this is headed. You haven’t a clue and it shows.

Despite unflinching Republican opposition and late carping by liberals that compromises to forge a 60-vote bloc went too far, Senate Democrats closed ranks behind legislation that would expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans, restrict the ability of private insurers to deny coverage and eventually trim the nation’s budget deficit.

Senators voted 60-39 Wednesday to end debate on the health bill, clearing the way for the last vote on final passage, now set for 7 a.m. Thursday. Only a majority of 51 votes is needed to pass the bill, which isn’t in doubt.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairman of the Finance Committee, declared, “It is now only hours until this Senate will pass meaningful health care reform.”    more …

Democrats are already outlining a strategy to achieve a final compromise that can satisfy the more liberal House without upsetting the painstakingly assembled coalition of 60 Senate Democrats and independents.     more …

Instead, doctors have been told to diagnose patients with “seasonal flu” or “pneumonia,” with only the severely ill patients selected to undertake an H1N1 confirmation test. Those with light symptoms are sent home, according to doctors.

Recent interviews by The Epoch Times have revealed that doctors, school staff, experts, and ordinary Chinese people are all painting the same picture—of a swiftly moving pandemic that is being covered up, based on instruction from the communist regime’s leadership.

A senior doctor from Chaoyang County in northeast China’s Liaoning Province told NTDTV that the regime has abdicated responsibility for treatment of H1N1 cases, and that the Chinese Communist Party’s cadres at all levels are covering up the pandemic to save their political careers.

“Now, we don’t report [H1N1], we just say that it is a flu,” the doctor said on condition of anonymity. “The government does not care… There are plenty of regulations— if 10 people die, you cannot report all 10, you can only report one. Now, there are only lies.”    more …

Washington Post
Monday, November 30, 2009
By Lori Montgomery

As the long battle over health care is rejoined in the Senate this week, experts remain deeply divided over whether the legislation would rein in soaring health-care costs or simply add millions of people to a system that is already driving the nation toward bankruptcy.

Optimists say the $848 billion package drafted by Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) contains all the most promising ideas for transforming the health-care system and encouraging doctors and hospitals to work more efficiently. They say it would eventually reduce both private premiums and the swelling cost of government health care for the elderly and poor.

Even pessimists don’t necessarily disagree. But they see scant evidence that those ideas would quickly bear fruit, and in the short term they fear that the initiative would leave Washington struggling to pay for a new $200 billion-a-year health program even as existing programs require vast infusions of cash to care for the aging baby-boom generation.    more …

That procedural vote will decide whether to bring that bill to the Senate floor and begin debate, and its approval relies on the votes of three wavering moderate Democrats. Republicans are expected to rally all 40 of their senators to block the legislation from advancing, requiring Reid (D-Nev.) to keep all 60 members of his Democratic caucus in line. Reid has refused to confirm whether he had received commitments from them.   more …

It also accused Omnicare of soliciting kickbacks from Johnson & Johnson in exchange for recommending that physicians prescribe the antipsychotic drug Risperdal to nursing home patients.    more …

The Washington Post
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
By Lyndsey Layton, Washington Post Staff Writer

The federal government is wading into the supermarket aisle, making its first effort to provide better nutritional information on food products since it developed the black-and-white Nutrition Facts label 15 years ago.

Margaret A. Hamburg, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, said Tuesday that shoppers are bombarded by slogans (“Heart Healthy,” “Good for You,” “A Better Choice”) on products and that the government needs to set standards and knock down spurious claims.

“As a mother of two who frequently finds herself racing down the grocery aisle hoping to grab foods that are healthy for my family, I would welcome the day that I can look on the front of packages and see nutrition information I can trust and use,” she said. “As the commissioner of FDA, I see it as my responsibility, and the responsibility of this administration, to help make that happen.”   more …

USDA said the discovery does not suggest infection of commercial pig herds raised for slaughter. Health officials say the virus, originally known as swine flu, is not linked to meat products.

“People cannot get this flu from eating pork or pork products. Pork is safe to eat,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement.

Swine flu, common in hogs around the world, causes fever and coughing in pigs, which usually recover from the illness. The virus has been found in several herds in Canada.

The new H1N1 virus, which emerged in March and was declared a pandemic in June, is circulating the globe and is widespread among people in 41 U.S. states.   more …