Subscribe to EIR Online

PRESS RELEASE


`Hitler Health' Increasingly the Issue
In U.S. Health Debate

July 27, 2009 (EIRNS)—EIR's sources on Capitol Hill indicate that the Obama Administration's attempt to ram through its health care program, is in total disarray. While the Senate will clearly not finalize a bill before the August recess, it is not at all clear that the House will do so either.

Equally important, the Republicans have finally begun to take up the crucial fact, that the bill put together by Obama and his fascist technocratic henchman, is modelled on Hitler's program to deny treatment, and to use dictatorial means to impose murderous austerity against the sick and the elderly. A most clear warning comes from House Republican Leader John Boehner and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter, who issued a joint statement on July 23, which reads:

"Section 1233 of the House-drafted legislation encourages health care providers to provide their Medicare patients with counseling on the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration and other end of life treatments, and may place seniors in situations where they feel pressured to sign end of life directives they would not otherwise sign. This provision may start us down a treacherous path toward government-encouraged euthanasia if enacted into law." This bill deserves a public debate, which is impossible under the "politically-driven deadlines Democratic leaders have arbitrarily set for enactment of a health care bill". This provision, they say, "could create a slippery slope for a more permissive environment for euthanasia, mercy-killing and physician-assisted suicide because it does not clearly exclude counseling about the supposed benefits of killing oneself."

Democratic Representative John Conyers, an Afro-American who has sponsored plans for a universal single payer (USP) health plan for the U.S. for many years, took off the gloves on the issue, at a conference at the National Press Club on July 24. "Obama was a USP supporter before," he said, "but now he says: 'If we were starting over, then I'd be for a USP, but we're not starting over.' Well, give me a break! We should be starting over, scrap this system! Too much is the same, there's not enough change, it's not universal." They say they want to "provide everyone with affordable health care". But that's "an oxymoron — when people are losing jobs, their homes—how can it be affordable?".

Feeding into the uproar is the debate over the Administration's demand for a dictatorial Independent Medicare Advisory Council, to contain costs.

A flavor of Obama Nero's intimidation towards Congressmen was given by Democrat Charles Melancon, who commented that "We're going to need some orthopedists around here to take care of the broken bones and twisted arms" of Democrats forced to vote for the bill.

In addition, different hospital associations which previously supported the Obama initiative are now mobilizing against it. The head of the Federation of American Hospitals, Chip Kahn, objects to the idea of an independent unelected board, and the American Hospital Association has urged members to contact their lawmakers and urge them to oppose any such technocratic commission that imposes which treatment are allowed and which not.

Back to top

clear
clear
clear