Obamacare Or Logan's Run? Or Are We Stupid (Part 1)

In 2005, Herman Cain's book, "They Think You're Stupid," debuted and I was fortunate to meet this very wise man. Cain wrote, "Like millions of voters, I used to make my voting decisions based on news, sound bites, political labels, distortions, misinformation, and sometimes no information at all. ... I am now a graduate of 'Stupid Anonymous' and want to share my awakening with others."

Sad to say, Herman, Americans are still making their voting decisions the same way or the president's health reform bill would have been laughed out of existence. I'd like to know where the environmental hypocrites are hiding, knowing that the health plan bill, H.R. 3200, is 1,000 pages long and has been distributed to all the members of the House and Senate. Shouldn't they be ranting about the poor trees that have been destroyed for this bill the same way they successfully demonized the supermarket brown bags? Those bags were replaced by plastic bags that shredded before shoppers reached the parking lots. Now these flimsy bags are being replaced by cloth bags made in China that will carry your precious, organic tasteless produce and the planet will be saved, thanks to you.

Yes, exactly how stupid are we to listen to the lies about our health care and not realize what's happening to our country? Is it possible that senior citizens may be the stupidest of us all? I can say this because I'm a senior but I was smart enough to recognize that AARP no longer had my best interests at heart once it supported President Obama's health reform plan.

I'm old enough to remember that when I first started working, I didn't have health insurance and I worked for the New York Telephone Company. Only wealthy people had Blue Cross. The rest of us went to the emergency rooms at Mt. Sinai, Flower Fifth Avenue, and Metropolitan Hospitals for medical crises. Doctor visits averaged about $10 and unless you were in an accident, you didn't have to see one that often, so why would you need health insurance?

The president and his media cronies push the plan as coverage for the 50,000 uninsured but they fail to answer the question of where the additional medical personnel will come from. We are already shorthanded and to handle the addition of these new patients, senior care will obviously be restricted.

In the 2009 budget, Social Security and Medicare total over $1 trillion. This is where the cuts will be made because there aren't enough wealthy people to cover the costs of this plan. No, it will be as usual the hard-working middle class that will carry the burden of those who can no longer contribute revenue to the government. Let us not forget that Obamacare will be available to noncitizens and those here illegally.

There are lots of distortions about the bill coming from both sides of the aisle so it's best to read the bill itself but that's a heady enterprise. Already claims that the plan promotes euthanasia are being disclaimed by the president's lackeys in the mainstream press. They are accusing the Republicans of using scare tactics just as the GOP claimed the Democrats did back in 2004. The difference, of course, is that these scare tactics are based on reality.

Even though H.R. 3200 is cloaked in language disguised to hide the fact that many provisions address end-of-life options and hospice accommodations, it is quite clear that the authors of the bill think these options outweigh medical care.

Had the senior citizens who voted for Mr. Obama bothered to check his voting background and affiliations, they would have known that respect for life that is unborn or disabled is above his pay grade. As state senator, he voted twice against allowing babies born alive after abortions to live. He has appointed Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, his chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel's brother, to be his health czar. Dr. Emanuel wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association, June 2008, that doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others."

Even more bluntly, Dr. Emanuel wrote in Lancet, Jan. 31, "Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years."

This is the man Mr. Obama selected to oversee the health care system. He is a fellow at the Hastings Center, which is a bioethics institution. Another fellow at the center is the infamous Peter Singer, the Princeton professor who believes handicapped infants should be killed so as not to overburden their parents. He believes animals deserve more rights than the handicapped. That goes for Alzheimer's patients whom he describes as "non-persons."

In the 1976 film, "Logan's Run," human beings living in a controlled dome existence were programmed to die once they reached the age of 30. The outside world had been decimated by an unknown cause, but whatever it was, it was done by mankind. (Sound familiar?) Human beings were meant to accept this death by calendar because it would be good for the rest of society.

That's it, my fellow seniors. Power-driven wheelchairs will be regulated by the government (P. 268); physician services for seniors will be reduced (P. 239); the government provides a list of end-of-life resources, guiding you to death (P. 425); government mandates programs that will order end-of-life treatment (P. 427). Don't take my word for it. The bill is available at www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/show.

Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis, who was named the new prefect of the Vatican Supreme Court of the Apostolic Signature last June, told the Italian Catholic newspaper Avvenire that the U.S. Democratic Party risked "transforming itself definitively into a party of death for its decisions on bioethical issues." That's been obvious since its overt defense of abortion-on-demand, but the party is more circumspect about its stance on euthanasia and assisted suicide because these concern the disabled and senior citizens who vote.

This administration thinks we're stupid and is trying to ram this bill down on throats. Next week, I'll share my recommendations on how to prove them wrong.C

Alicia Colon resides in New York and is a columnist for www.nysun.com. Her web site is www.aliciacolon.com.