Part II was promised for a couple of weeks ago. However, snow, business, and minor family illnesses interfered. Better late than never, I hope!
Since my last update, David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, has announced his resignation. This article from the Health Renewal Blog explains why this is a very good thing.
Part I of my discussion on "Meaningful Use" regulations can be found here if you need a refresher.
Continued from last update:
3. Further down, we start getting to the real meat of "Meaningful Use" and how it will fit into the overall ObamaCare scheme: Implement capability to electronically exchange key clinical information among providers and patient-authorized entities. Not so bad, right? Patient-authorized entities are, well, authorized. Actually, the term "patient-authorized entities" refers to insurance companies and the government in the form of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. This is the provision that will allow real-time monitoring of and interference with the decisions you and your doctor make in the (former) privacy of the doctor-patient relationship. Previously, these entities could request copies of your chart but infrequently did so due to the logistics involved. Now they will simply log-in. Worse, they will have electronic algorithms that will watch and wait for signs that "poor quality" decisions are being made. This is the actual mechanism whereby our health care will be rationed.
4. Implement one clinical decision support rule and ability to track compliance with the rule. At least they aren't calling them "guidelines" anymore. The word "guideline" implies that there is some wiggle room for doctors and patients to make judgments. On the other hand, a rule is a rule. This will be where the doctor is "supported" into telling you that your mammogram must be delayed until you are 50 years old instead of 40.
5. Generate lists of patients by specific conditions to use for quality improvement, reduction of disparities, research, or outreach. "Quality improvement" refers to rules and penalties. "Reduction of disparities" is a subject I wrote about at American Thinker. Research? What about The Nuremberg Code's requirement that all medical research involve voluntary consent? I don't see any such requirement in these regulations. Lastly, since when it is the business of an electronic medical record system to provide lists of patients for "outreach". Outreach by whom?
6. The rest of the Meaningful Use regulations include more of the same. Among other things, information will be submitted by these systems to state vaccine registries, public health agencies, and will check to see if the your doctor's drug choices are on approved formularies. Oh, one last thing, the electronic chart must be capable of documenting the advance directives of people over the age of 65 years of age or older (DrRich at the Covert Rationing Blog recently expounded on the subject of advance directives).
I will reiterate that all of the above will be required if doctors and providers are to receive incentive payments from the government. We talk about corruption and money in reference to politicians getting contributions. But isn't it corruption when the government is spending billions in order to convince (or bribe) doctors and hospitals into doing questionable things with patients' medical information?
In response to those of you who have asked, I will get back to more general health care updates over the next few days. To hold you over, here is a video from today of Representative Tom Price, M.D., questioning Donald Berwick. Listen to how he talks about freedom as it relates to medical decision making!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Euthanasia Update
Although abortion is a primary focus, we should be aware that the same people and organizations who promote abortion, are also working just as hard to legalize euthanasia.
In Quebec Canada: Quebec will hold hearings on "assisted suicide" during "Suicide Prevention Week". RU kidding?
In Belgium: Another study has been published, which shows the practice of euthanasia for organ donation. People are being pressured to die, in order to provide healthy organs.
In France: The euthanasia debate is ongoing, however, the Senate defeated a bill to legalize euthanasia last week. This will not be the end of the debate.
In Oregon: Death With Dignity released it's 2010 report. Remember assisted suicide is legal in Oregon. So, it is not surprising that the number of assisted suicides have increased. There were 59 reported deaths from the 96 lethal prescriptions, that were written, with an additional deaths from lethal prescriptions from previous years (96 prescriptions & 59 deaths don't add up). Oregon stats continue to indicate that elder abuse is likely. Those who died by assisted suicide indicated that 61 (93.8%) of the people, felt a loss of autonomy, 61 (93.8%) felt a decreasing ability to participate in activities, while 51 (78.5%) of the people felt they had lost dignity.
In Montana: Montana's Court had allowed legalized euthanasia, but Senator Greg Hinkle has introduced Senate Bill 116, that would reverse the court decision and prohibit assisted suicide. The debate continues. The outcome is uncertain.
In Vermont: There is a proposed bill to legalize assisted suicide. The Governor will sign the bill.
In Hawaii: A bill has been introduced to legalize assisted suicide. It is Senate Bill 803. The Hawaii State Senate Health Committee has voted to hold the bill to legalize assisted suicide. It will return.
In Idaho: A bill has been introduced on assisted suicide.
As you can see, the euthanasia proponents are as committed to this issue, as they are to
abortion. Abortion is here. Euthanasia though still new, needs to be understood by all pro-lifers, just as they understand abortion.
In Quebec Canada: Quebec will hold hearings on "assisted suicide" during "Suicide Prevention Week". RU kidding?
In Belgium: Another study has been published, which shows the practice of euthanasia for organ donation. People are being pressured to die, in order to provide healthy organs.
In France: The euthanasia debate is ongoing, however, the Senate defeated a bill to legalize euthanasia last week. This will not be the end of the debate.
In Oregon: Death With Dignity released it's 2010 report. Remember assisted suicide is legal in Oregon. So, it is not surprising that the number of assisted suicides have increased. There were 59 reported deaths from the 96 lethal prescriptions, that were written, with an additional deaths from lethal prescriptions from previous years (96 prescriptions & 59 deaths don't add up). Oregon stats continue to indicate that elder abuse is likely. Those who died by assisted suicide indicated that 61 (93.8%) of the people, felt a loss of autonomy, 61 (93.8%) felt a decreasing ability to participate in activities, while 51 (78.5%) of the people felt they had lost dignity.
In Montana: Montana's Court had allowed legalized euthanasia, but Senator Greg Hinkle has introduced Senate Bill 116, that would reverse the court decision and prohibit assisted suicide. The debate continues. The outcome is uncertain.
In Vermont: There is a proposed bill to legalize assisted suicide. The Governor will sign the bill.
In Hawaii: A bill has been introduced to legalize assisted suicide. It is Senate Bill 803. The Hawaii State Senate Health Committee has voted to hold the bill to legalize assisted suicide. It will return.
In Idaho: A bill has been introduced on assisted suicide.
As you can see, the euthanasia proponents are as committed to this issue, as they are to
abortion. Abortion is here. Euthanasia though still new, needs to be understood by all pro-lifers, just as they understand abortion.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Abortion Thrives In Blue States
Unsurprisingly to pro-lifers, abortion is most often resorted to in states that support pro-abortion leaders. From Publius Forum:
As every good liberal pretends to know, the cause of high abortion rates is religious conservatives’ refusal to cooperate with “family planning” advocates, toward the supposedly common goal of reducing the number of abortions. If only those snake-handling bumpkins would see the wisdom in making abortion “safe, legal and rare,” the argument goes, fewer abortions would be “necessary.” Thus, the liberal media explain, those simple-minded anti-abortion activists are unwittingly defeating their own cause.
It follows, then, that abortion rates should be lowest in places where social conservatives have the least influence. Then why aren’t they? According to New York City’s Department of Health, 41 percent of all pregnancies there end in abortion. Planned Parenthood, feigning displeasure with that figure, is blaming it on the city schools for not embracing its preferred sex education curriculum. So you see, even in one of the most liberal cities in America, the frequency of abortion is the fault of those meddlesome right-wing Christians, as usual.
But wait a minute. The same week that the NYC health department report was published, the Alan Guttmacher Institute released its figures on the state-by-state abortion rates for 2008, the most recent year on record. The Guttmacher Institute was originally created as the research division of Planned Parenthood, and was named after a former president of that organization, so the pro-abortion side presumably wouldn’t dispute its findings. The five highest per capita abortion rates were in the decisively blue states of Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Maryland and California. The five lowest were in Wyoming, Mississippi, Kentucky, South Dakota and Idaho.
How can the “don’t call us pro-abortion” crowd look at those statistics, and still claim with straight faces to be striving to lower the abortion rate? If they say the carnage in New York City is due to a lack of liberal sex education, then how do they explain abortion rates being lowest in the Southern and Western red states, whose schools are not likely to invite Dr. Ruth Westheimer as a guest lecturer? It turns out they don’t have to, because few in the media ever examine the pro-abortionists’ claims, regardless of how counterintuitive they may be.
Only by indulging in mindless go-along-to-get-along bipartisan feelgoodism could anyone possibly expect abortion advocates to cooperate in lowering the abortion rate. Planned Parenthood owns and operates the largest chain of abortion clinics in the world. When their employees “counsel” pregnant women, they do not merely present abortion as one among several options, let alone as being less desirable than the others. Their job is to sell abortions. Crisis pregnancy centers that counsel women against abortion are stealing their customers. It should be needless to say that this arrangement precludes any cooperation between the two sides.
The only thing that disturbs the abortionists and abortion salesmen about a 41 percent abortion rate is the fact that it has been made public. That number represents not only a great deal of money to them, but also the fulfillment of their purpose, which is not “women’s health” or “reproductive freedom,” but population control. Sure, they promote contraception and sterilization for the same reason, but the effects of those things cannot be quantified. There’s no way for them to know when they’ve prevented the birth of a child who’s never existed. Only abortion provides them with affirmation of their success.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
What Is Obama Hiding This Time?
It seems that this president is always trying to hide something or other. Whether it's his birth certificate, his academic records from Columbia or Harvard, the actual contents of pending legislation, or... the list goes on... this man who campaigned on promises of transparency always seems to find something new to cover up. Now, it's abortion statistics:
(Cross-posted from Thoughts of a Regular Guy.)
RedState has uncovered evidence - confirmed by the CDC’s own press office - that the Obama administration is deliberately playing “hide the ball” on nationwide abortion statistics. For apparently the first time in 40 years, the CDC’s annual “Abortion Surveillance Report” was not published, and there are “no plans” for the data to be produced at this time.Can there be any doubt that it's such an increase in abortion numbers as to embarrass even Obama, who once asserted (contrary to the clear evidence of his own voting record) that "no one is 'pro-abortion'"?
Whatever you feel about abortion and its legality, virtually all people agree that transparency and factual accuracy are important in the abortion debate. That is why even Planned Parenthood spends a substantial amount of money each year funding the Guttmacher Institute’s studies on abortion statistics. While pro-life groups have long contended that Guttmacher’s methods systematically undercount abortions, that is beside the point; the Guttmacher studies have long provided a consistent source for studying abortion trends over time. Which aggregate data, we re-emphasize, is important not only for both sides of the ideological debate, but is also important medical information.
Yet, in the wake of numerous damaging disclosures about unscrupulous practices by abortionists (from Kermit Gosnell to Planned Parenthood clinics across the country), the Obama Administration has apparently ordered that the only Federal government report on abortion statistics – again, a report that has run continuously for 40 years – be deep-sixed. The immediate question this raises is: what is the Obama administration trying to hide? [Emphasis added.]
(Cross-posted from Thoughts of a Regular Guy.)
Call Any Elected Official On This List
Planned Parenthood endorsed the following state-wide and local politicians, in the 2010 general election ...
- Governor - Pat Quinn (D)
- Lt. Gov. - Sheila Simon (D)
- Attorney General - Lisa Madigan (D)
- Secretary of State - Jesse White (D)
- State Senate 31st Dist. - Michael Bond (D) (lost)
- Illinois House 52nd Dist. - Mark Beaubien Jr. (R)
- Illinois House 58th Dist. - Karen May (D)
- Illinois House 59th Dist. - Carol Sente (D)
- Illinois House 62nd Dist. - Sandy Cole (R)
Sting Operation
Many people, including some in my family, continue to think that Planned Parenthood (PP) is only about family planning. By now, every thinking person should be aware, that PP indeed is all about family planning - in the most insidious manner. Consider the latest release from Live Action Films - which shows a couple posing as a pimp and his prostitute, seeking advise regarding the under age foreign girls in their employ. The video reveals a New Jersey PP office manager working out a deal for a "no questions asked" services for these girls, and how to circumvent the law. Surprise! The services naturally include abortions, birth control and STD testing.
The manager tells the couple to have their under age girls lie about their age to avoid the mandatory reporting laws. The manager further recommends claiming the girls are students in order to make them appear more legitimate and receive discounted services. She continues by referring the couple to another local clinic, which is less scrutinizing, in case one of the minors needs an abortion, stating "they don't get audited the same way we do".
The PP manager continues to advise the couple on how long the girls need to wait after an abortion before being able to earn money by performing their sexual services, and what kind of other sexual services they can do to make money in the interim.
Sex trafficking is a federal offense carrying a 10 year to life sentence. I wonder if Planned Parenthood will get life, or just continue to get our tax dollars.
Lila Rose, president of Live Action , who released the new under-cover video said, "This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Planned Parenthood intentionally breaks state and federal laws and covers up the abuse of the young girls it claims to serve. Live Action is sending full footage to the US Attorney General Eric Holder, the New Jersey Attorney General, the FBI and other law-enforcement officials. Live Action is requesting state and federal investigations into Planned Parenthood's abuse and sex-trafficking cover-up.
Recent information from the Government Accountability Office report reveals, that the Planned Parenthood abortion business reported spending over $650 million dollars in federal funds over a 7 year period. Hmmmm. I wonder if those politicians, who were endorsed by Planned Parenthood, are proud?
The manager tells the couple to have their under age girls lie about their age to avoid the mandatory reporting laws. The manager further recommends claiming the girls are students in order to make them appear more legitimate and receive discounted services. She continues by referring the couple to another local clinic, which is less scrutinizing, in case one of the minors needs an abortion, stating "they don't get audited the same way we do".
The PP manager continues to advise the couple on how long the girls need to wait after an abortion before being able to earn money by performing their sexual services, and what kind of other sexual services they can do to make money in the interim.
Sex trafficking is a federal offense carrying a 10 year to life sentence. I wonder if Planned Parenthood will get life, or just continue to get our tax dollars.
Lila Rose, president of Live Action , who released the new under-cover video said, "This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Planned Parenthood intentionally breaks state and federal laws and covers up the abuse of the young girls it claims to serve. Live Action is sending full footage to the US Attorney General Eric Holder, the New Jersey Attorney General, the FBI and other law-enforcement officials. Live Action is requesting state and federal investigations into Planned Parenthood's abuse and sex-trafficking cover-up.
Recent information from the Government Accountability Office report reveals, that the Planned Parenthood abortion business reported spending over $650 million dollars in federal funds over a 7 year period. Hmmmm. I wonder if those politicians, who were endorsed by Planned Parenthood, are proud?
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Teavangelicals And The Priority of Things
A recent article in the American Family Association Journal (AFA) by Ed Vitagliano chronicled the birth of the Tea Party movement in America, and the rise of what has now been termed "Teavangelicals". This term was coined by David Brody, CBN News White House correspondent, due to the huge conservative Christian influence in the Tea Party movement.
The initial trigger of the Tea Party, according to the article, is attributed by many to a CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli, who criticized President Obama's bailout plans, asking for a "Tea Party" response". Traders from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, upon hearing this remark, shouted approval of the term with raucous applause, and the Tea Party movement seemed to take root from there and spread nationwide.
Still, AFA of Michigan president Gary Glenn believe social conservatives were instrumental in getting the Tea Party phenomenon off the ground. He stated, "A substantial majority of local Tea Party organizations were started by social conservatives mobilized by the special Tea Party Web site posted by the AFA."
So though it would seem that the Tea Party movement was born and driven by concerns of economic freedom and limited government; bankrupting future generations with big out-of-control government was seen, in the eyes of the religious right, as not merely a fiscal issue but a moral issue. Still, though Tea Partiers seem to be more social conservative than libertarian, most particularly on the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage; both opponents of big government, as well as opponents of abortion, are in full accord against the health care overhaul.
So, was the rise of Teavangelicals simply because they would like the government to take a moral role in our culture? Actually, the article points out, that it was because they saw the government intruding upon the moral realm first - with the US Supreme Court removing school prayer and legalizing abortion, and distributing condoms in schools etc.
But, now a handful of Tea Party groups along with the homosexual Republican group GOProud, has asked the GOP to drop social issues from its agenda entirely, stating in an open letter to the GOP, "The Tea Party movement is a non-partisan movement, focused on issues of economic freedom and limited government. Already there are Washington insiders and special interest groups that hope to co-opt the Tea Party's message and use it to push their own agenda - particularly as it relates to social issues." Yet, having no central headquarters or official spokesperson makes it ludicrous for anyone to claim that the movement has been co-opted.
Competition between fiscal and social conservatives for control of the GOP is not new, with social conservatives feeling kicked to the curb more often than not, in the political arena. But this time around, social conservatives will not be that easily dismissed or assuaged to wait patiently on the sidelines. Founder and chairman of the FFC argued that the Tea Party movement and the religious right "are inextricably intertwined and there is an enormous amount of overlap." He further stated, "Those who ignore or disregard social conservative voters and their issues do so at their own peril."
In the Book of Genesis, we read how man's rebellion against God, threw the whole of Creation into chaos, and as man rebelled against God, nature rebelled against man. There is a priority to things, which still holds true today, as it did in the book of Genesis. We cannot hope for a fiscal Garden of Eden, while we continue the unabated murder of millions upon millions of helpless, innocent unborn, and while every other law of God is trampled underfoot.
The initial trigger of the Tea Party, according to the article, is attributed by many to a CNBC on-air editor Rick Santelli, who criticized President Obama's bailout plans, asking for a "Tea Party" response". Traders from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, upon hearing this remark, shouted approval of the term with raucous applause, and the Tea Party movement seemed to take root from there and spread nationwide.
Still, AFA of Michigan president Gary Glenn believe social conservatives were instrumental in getting the Tea Party phenomenon off the ground. He stated, "A substantial majority of local Tea Party organizations were started by social conservatives mobilized by the special Tea Party Web site posted by the AFA."
So though it would seem that the Tea Party movement was born and driven by concerns of economic freedom and limited government; bankrupting future generations with big out-of-control government was seen, in the eyes of the religious right, as not merely a fiscal issue but a moral issue. Still, though Tea Partiers seem to be more social conservative than libertarian, most particularly on the issues of abortion and same-sex marriage; both opponents of big government, as well as opponents of abortion, are in full accord against the health care overhaul.
So, was the rise of Teavangelicals simply because they would like the government to take a moral role in our culture? Actually, the article points out, that it was because they saw the government intruding upon the moral realm first - with the US Supreme Court removing school prayer and legalizing abortion, and distributing condoms in schools etc.
But, now a handful of Tea Party groups along with the homosexual Republican group GOProud, has asked the GOP to drop social issues from its agenda entirely, stating in an open letter to the GOP, "The Tea Party movement is a non-partisan movement, focused on issues of economic freedom and limited government. Already there are Washington insiders and special interest groups that hope to co-opt the Tea Party's message and use it to push their own agenda - particularly as it relates to social issues." Yet, having no central headquarters or official spokesperson makes it ludicrous for anyone to claim that the movement has been co-opted.
Competition between fiscal and social conservatives for control of the GOP is not new, with social conservatives feeling kicked to the curb more often than not, in the political arena. But this time around, social conservatives will not be that easily dismissed or assuaged to wait patiently on the sidelines. Founder and chairman of the FFC argued that the Tea Party movement and the religious right "are inextricably intertwined and there is an enormous amount of overlap." He further stated, "Those who ignore or disregard social conservative voters and their issues do so at their own peril."
In the Book of Genesis, we read how man's rebellion against God, threw the whole of Creation into chaos, and as man rebelled against God, nature rebelled against man. There is a priority to things, which still holds true today, as it did in the book of Genesis. We cannot hope for a fiscal Garden of Eden, while we continue the unabated murder of millions upon millions of helpless, innocent unborn, and while every other law of God is trampled underfoot.
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Planned Parenthood Consults On Sex-Slave Ring
Here we see the small-business consultants at Planned Parenthood facilitating the work of a local pimp to set up a sex-slave ring with underage illegal-immigrant prostitutes:
This is outrageous on the face of it, but there's much more we'll have to say on this.
(Cross-posted from: Thoughts of a Regular Guy).
This is outrageous on the face of it, but there's much more we'll have to say on this.
(Cross-posted from: Thoughts of a Regular Guy).
Book Review: God's Avenger
God's Avenger
by Daniel John Gura
Pleasant Word, 324 pages, $15.21
We pro-lifers spend a lot of time in prayer. For many of us, prayer is our primary -- even sole -- method of opposing abortion.
Some of us have been privileged to see our prayers answered as babies are saved from abortion when their mothers turn away from the clinic doors, or abortion workers quit their work, or clinics close due to their protests.
But not all the prayers are for conversion of hearts and minds. Some prayers, the "imprecatory prayers" call upon God to visit his justice on those who perform abortions.
When those prayers are answered, what might it look like? That's the question Dan Gura has set out to answer in God's Avenger: Michael, The Imprecatory Angel.
The action begins with the middle-of-the night partial collapse of a Chicago office tower, City Gate Tower 8, home to the national headquarters of the "Council of Women" and their flagship abortion clinic. No one is injured, but some who are close by are preserved from harm only by miraculous means. And when the first building inspectors on the scene catch a glimpse of the Archangel Michael wielding his flaming sword to finish the job, their lives, and thousands of others' are changed forever.
The thing that impressed me most in reading this book was Gura's use of characters, both major and minor, to tell his story. Gura presents us with characters you can identify with, and care about. In a story intended to drive home the point that every life is precious, every character is important. And often in ways that I didn't expect.
I've met Dan Gura on several occasions, most recently at the "Speak Out Illinois" pro-life conference over this past weekend, but more commonly at meetings of the Republican Assembly of Lake County, of which we are both members. This photo was taken this past Saturday of Dan's wife, Dan, and myself.
It's a story about people, and how they become involved in a sequence of events that is really quite fantastic. But ultimately, it's also a story about justice: justice delayed, justice delivered, divine justice. I don't believe that the real world -- or the real God -- operates in quite the way that Gura describes in his novel. But in many ways, it sure would be nice if it -- and He -- did.
I strongly recommend this book for anyone who is pro-life.
(Cross-posted from Thoughts of a Regular Guy)
by Daniel John Gura
Pleasant Word, 324 pages, $15.21
We pro-lifers spend a lot of time in prayer. For many of us, prayer is our primary -- even sole -- method of opposing abortion.
Some of us have been privileged to see our prayers answered as babies are saved from abortion when their mothers turn away from the clinic doors, or abortion workers quit their work, or clinics close due to their protests.
But not all the prayers are for conversion of hearts and minds. Some prayers, the "imprecatory prayers" call upon God to visit his justice on those who perform abortions.
When those prayers are answered, what might it look like? That's the question Dan Gura has set out to answer in God's Avenger: Michael, The Imprecatory Angel.
The action begins with the middle-of-the night partial collapse of a Chicago office tower, City Gate Tower 8, home to the national headquarters of the "Council of Women" and their flagship abortion clinic. No one is injured, but some who are close by are preserved from harm only by miraculous means. And when the first building inspectors on the scene catch a glimpse of the Archangel Michael wielding his flaming sword to finish the job, their lives, and thousands of others' are changed forever.
The thing that impressed me most in reading this book was Gura's use of characters, both major and minor, to tell his story. Gura presents us with characters you can identify with, and care about. In a story intended to drive home the point that every life is precious, every character is important. And often in ways that I didn't expect.
I've met Dan Gura on several occasions, most recently at the "Speak Out Illinois" pro-life conference over this past weekend, but more commonly at meetings of the Republican Assembly of Lake County, of which we are both members. This photo was taken this past Saturday of Dan's wife, Dan, and myself.It's a story about people, and how they become involved in a sequence of events that is really quite fantastic. But ultimately, it's also a story about justice: justice delayed, justice delivered, divine justice. I don't believe that the real world -- or the real God -- operates in quite the way that Gura describes in his novel. But in many ways, it sure would be nice if it -- and He -- did.
I strongly recommend this book for anyone who is pro-life.
(Cross-posted from Thoughts of a Regular Guy)
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