CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, July 27, 2009

KevorkianCare: Hemlock for seniors

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse from Medicare would reduce Medicare costs by one percent. For a quasi-governmental program, that’s a remarkably low percentage of waste, fraud and abuse. Nevertheless, just as the bulk of baby boomers are turning age 65, the Obama White House proposes to cut Medicare funding by $500 billion dollars.

Wait a minute. When President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) proposed Medicare back in 1965, he sold it on the basis that Medicare would improve the lives of seniors, enable seniors to enjoy their “golden years,” and put off the time when seniors would end up in nursing homes. Moreover, young- and middle-aged adults would not need to set aside money for the medical care of their aging parents and grandparents. Although far from flawless, Medicare is working pretty much as LBJ predicted.

Unfortunately, the broad sweep of ObamaCare (AKA KevorkianCare) will destroy Medicare and, in effect, put everyone on Medicare’s poorly-managed and poorly-funded cousin, Medicaid. The ObamaCare proposals will reduce everyone’s access to medical care, put pressure on the elderly to end their lives prematurely, and ration restorative procedures (like hip or knee replacements) – proven surgical procedures that can restore quality-of-life, and even economic (taxable) productivity.

So now, in addition to neo-Racism, the Obama White House is adding neo-Eugenics to its resume. (Eugenics is the theory that the human species can be improved through the use of forced abortion, forced sterilization, euthanasia and selective breeding.)

Eugenics has a long history peopled with some big names on both the political Left and Right, although mainly on the Left. On the Left, these names come to mind: the national socialist, Adolf Hitler (cremation of Jews), Margaret Sanger (the founder of Planned Parenthood), Joseph Stalin (mass starvation of Ukrainians), Pol Pot (firing squads). Add to those names: current U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the new White House Science Czar, John Holdren.

On July 10, 2009, Justice Ginsburg told The New York Times Magazine that she supported Roe v. Wade (the case that legalized abortion) because: “Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Earth to Justice Ginsburg: In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that Margaret Sanger informed his thinking about Eugenics. Hitler put over six million of your co-religionists into the ovens. Earth to Barack Hussein Obama: Margaret Sanger wrote that she founded Planned Parenthood in order to reduce the number of Negroes in America.

In 1977, the new White House Science Czar, John Holdren, co-authored Ecoscience: Population, Resources and Environment, in which he wrote: “To provide a high quality of life for all, there must be fewer people.” He suggested: forced abortions, inserting sterilization capsules into pubescent teenagers, and putting chemicals in certain water reserves and foods to make people sterile. Folks, even Gene Roddenberrry, the creator of “Star Trek,” couldn’t make up this stuff.

One way to reduce medical costs is by making Barratry (the filing of meritless law suits) a federal felony. The mass-tort and personal-injury shysters would flee, while allowing medical malpractice cases with actual merit to go forward. (Barratry is already felony in Texas. It is a misdemeanor in California, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.)

Currently, physicians are paid to cut, fix and/or prescribe drugs. While the main diseases of aging: heart disease and cancer, respond to cutting and certain drugs, better life-style choices can prevent many diseases. It can be said that health care is up to us. Medical care should be left to health professionals – not government bureaucrats.

Converting to socialized medicine to please the neo-Eugenists in Congress and the White House is a recipe for a disaster. Dr. David Gratzer, a Canadian physician, offers better alternatives in his: The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care.

William Hamilton, a syndicated columnist and a featured commentator for USA Today, studied at Harvard’s JFK School of Government. Dr. Hamilton is a former assistant professor of political science and history at Nebraska Wesleyan University.

©2009. William Hamilton.

Dr. Hamilton can be contacted at:

Email: william@central-view.com