A Coming Attraction

You've no doubt heard quite a few arguments for and against a national health care. I think the most telling condemnation of a government health care system is examples from existing similar programs.

Recently, a young lady in Britain suffered the loss of her premature son. Her child was born at 22 weeks -- an age at which infants have survived with proper care. This child received no such care. Once the government doctors discovered that she was only 22 weeks along, no preparations were made to care for this young and vulnerable life. In fact, before the young lady gave birth, a chaplain was sent in to help her with bereavement and funeral planning! Holding her son for a few hours as he turned his head and moved his limbs, the young mother pleaded, begged, and cried out for medical care for her son. She was rebuffed by all -- doctors, nurses, administrators, and chaplain. One possible reason for the medically unsound threshold for premie care -- to defend the window in which abortions are permitted in the UK.

Such a thing could not happen today in America. If it ever did, the individual medical personnel would lose their licenses and the hospital would be sued out of existence. There is no recourse against a government official. They cannot be sued, regardless of whether or not they know their actions or inactions will cause harm. Civil service employees cannot be fired, certainly not if they follow government regulations.

So who will be making the regulations governing a public health system? The Obama administration has many czars, but the lead personnel on health care are HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, OMB Deputy Director / Government Performance czar Jeffrey Zients, Dircetor of ONAP / AIDS czar Jeffrey Crowley, Director of the White House Office of Health Reform /Health czar Nancy-Ann Deparle, Regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, and Science czar John Holdren.

I will hold off discussing Holdren and Sunstein until later. (I made a promise to get the blog out on a short time line.) For now the short version is that these two believe that only 'ideal' people should be preserved and human population should be decreased in order to save the planet. I'll handle them when I have time to do more thorough research.

I should also mention Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist with close ties with the president and brother to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Dr Emanuel has proposed that people should be ranked according to their ability to produce for society. This ranking would then determine eligibility for health care.

Now on with the rest. Kathleen Sebelius, former governor of Kansas ran political cover for the Dr. Tiller, a prominent abortionist who frequently conducted extreme late-term abortions -- abortions other doctors refused to conduct due to the advanced development of the fetus. (You may recall that Dr. Tiller was recently murdered in church by a nutcase.) Additionally, Sebelius vetoed every abortion regulation sent to her by the Kansas legislature.

Nancy -Ann Deparle was apart of the earlier Clinton health care take over attempt. Later, she ran Medicare and Medicaid in the Clinton administration.

Jeffrey Zients is still the managing general partner of Portfolio Logic, an investment group specializing in health care and business services companies. Portfolio Logic currently owns Pediatric Services of America. Zients specialty is advising health care companies on ways to cut costs. In addition to his duties of streamlining processes and cutting costs, Zients will have a hand in regulating the security clearance process. Aside from the conflict of interest angle (no small thing) I found no glaring red flags on Zients.

Last but not least we have Jeffrey Crowley. Crowley has spent much of his career advocating for greater usage of Medicare and Medicaid, and advising others on how to be come a "Heath Policy Advocate." His specific focus now is on AIDS- he has had a hand in a few medical papers regarding AIDS or treatment of AIDS patients. However, Speaking before the Council on Aging called in 2006, Mr Crowley advised an incremental approach to government health care -- quite in line with some current plans to 'phase-in' government control through triggers and onerous regulations.

Well, that's all the raw data I could gather in a short time. Granted, some of these folks are not particularly dangerous, at least on the surface. Bear in mind that I did not go into Sunstein, Holdren, and Emanuel yet.

The danger so far is in having the government deciding who lives and who dies. We cannot let a group of people with little experience outside of government, and more concern for trees and animal than people, establishing the rules determining who does or does not get health care. Otherwise, we wind up with denial of expensive, life-sustaining care for seniors, lack of prenatal or peri-natal care for the young -- eventually leading to regulations of who may or may not give birth, or how many children they may have.

Sources for this posting include:
GovExec.com
InformationWeek.com
wikipedia.com
towleroad.com
dailymail.co.uk
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211950/Premature-baby-left-die-doctors-mother-gives-birth-just-days-22-week-care-limit.html

Mea Culpa

I recently posted a slide show comparing Obama to Hitler on my Facebook page. Shortly thereafter, an old friend chastised me, suggesting that the comparison is poor and does not contribute to the debate. I believe he was half-right. Most of those who oppose Obama's policies will raucously cheer the comparison (many just because it attacks our current president). Those who laud his person or goals will rage against the comparison and call it hate speech. The undecideds will most likely look at it on its surface and reject it as did my old army pal. Thus, the slides do not contribute to the debate and for that I heartily apologize.

However, I think it should be stated that there ARE legitimate comparisons between Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama. Both men appealed to a fearful populace and promised hope and change. Both men were quite clear in their stated goals and aspirations, yet people who voted for each man claim they had no idea he was going to take the path he went down (or is traveling now).

To be clear, Hitler's party-- the National Socialist German Workers Party -- was, as stated socialist, but it's foreign policy stance was obviously focused on Germany's interest to the detriment of others. Obama's foreign policy is internalist, which is keeping with most socialist thinking. This is a focus on the world community, even to the detriment of one's one country.

Domestically, however Obama's politics line up quite closely with Hitler's because both believed that the state was the solution to every problem a citizen might face. Obviously Obama is not about to try and kill off American (or Canadian and Mexican) Jews, nor do I suggest he will initiate a war for Lebensraum.

Yet, the blatant evils of Hitler have allowed too many of us to turn a blind eye to the darkness that gave him the power to accomplish his most despicable acts. Hitler appealed to fear of "others" to unite "good Germans" against the enemies he identified, but to gather the power to conduct his pogrom he had to also appeal to the German people's economic insecurities. He promised a government that would provide jobs, health care, even wellness centers and workers' resorts for vacations. Obama is doing the same thing and if he is not stopped he will accomplish the same goal -- the consolidation and centralization of power in the hands of a few, hand-picked elites. This is evil, avarice and greed in its purest form. This must be stopped, BEFORE the power grab is complete.