“If the physician presumes to take into consideration in his work whether a life has value or not, the consequences are boundless and the physician becomes the most dangerous man in the state.”

                                        -Christopher Hufeland

                                          Eighteenth century physician

Today in America we citizens are faced with a government absorbed with foisting a statist directed health care system upon us. Firm in its resolve to transform the country into a socialist utopia with nationalized health care (unfazed by the stubborn historical facts which point to the disastrous consequences of such a hypothesis) they sally forth with trying to get America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (HR 3200) to the House floor for a vote in the fall. During this summer’s Congressional recess we must work to stop them.

By pounding away endlessly on cable TV and radio, liberals are using their slippery talking points on health care reform to conjure visions of a destitute nation yearning to dismantle a failing health system. You can fool some of the people some of the time. But, what about the doctors? How do they get them on board with the idea of government determining how care is delivered, who gets care and, more importantly who doesn’t. Moreover, if liberal health reform succeeds what is to be done with the recalcitrant defenders of The Hippocratic Oath? How do they get our minds right?

In 2003, uber-liberal billionaire George Soros and his Open Society Institute founded the Institute on Medicine as a Profession (IMAP). Headed by Dr. Daniel Rothman, IMAP is dedicated to what will constitute professionalism should liberal health care succeed. Professionalism under the IMAP definition is really tantamount to compliance with liberalism.   If the involvement of George Soros isn’t enough to convince you of the socialist leanings of this organization—from their website:

“Professionalism alone should not be responsible for governing medical practice; there is clear need for formal regulation, whether through state or federal legislative and administrative bodies. Nevertheless, external intervention confronts significant barriers. Law and regulation are blunt tools for governing the many intricacies of the doctor-patient relationship.”

The IMAP library link is a treasure trove of liberal propaganda containing articles related to physician assisted suicide, social justice and medical professionalism as “force for change.”

You may ask yourself-“So what? It’s just another liberal advocacy group. What influence can they have?” George Soros notwithstanding, their influence ascends all the way to The White House. In a joint effort with the Institute for Health Policy at the Massachusetts General Hospital (IHPM), IMAP issued a report on physician’s attitudes toward their definition of professionalism. Who is the founding director of IHPM and co-author of Dr. Rothman’s article on conflicts of interest in the pharmaceutical industry? The ubiquitous, Institute of Medicine liberal and White House Director of Health IT- Dr. David Blumenthal. Therefore, the IMAP has, at least, the ear of the powerful.

HR 3200 is plump with legislative language which would alter the way care is delivered.

Illustrative foreshadowing of the natural history of the attitudes that are espoused by IMAP is contained in section 1233 of the bill which calls for Advanced Care Planning of elderly Americans. This section of the bill will require by law that every 5 years an American senior citizen be coerced to discuss with a “practitioner” the terms of the end of life care they will receive. They must spell it out for the government whether they want to live or not. I can not think of a more egregious violation of personal liberty. Joining me in this is the Chairman of the New York State Senate Aging Committee, State Senator Ruben Diaz. In a letter to Congressman Henry Waxman (D) California and Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee he wrote-“Section 1233 of HR 3200 puts our senior citizens on a slippery slope and may diminish respect for the inherent dignity of each of their lives. Each life must be cherished and regarded with reverence.” Every good socialist movement needs a good scapegoat.  Along with obese people, the elderly are currently under heavy assault by the left.

In a chapter of a scholarly collection of reviews on the Holocaust entitled “The Holocaust and History”, author Hugh Gregory Gallagher prefaces his contribution with a personal statement:

“I am a historian, author of “By Trust Betrayed: Patients, Physicians and the Licenses to Kill in the Third Reich”; I am also a severely disabled person, a polio quadriplegic. As such, I am interested in the evolution of the social attitudes toward and assumptions about disabled people. It is my conviction that the underlying assumptions that made possible the killing by physicians of upwards of 200,000 disabled German citizens in the 1930’s and 1940’s are still widely held, not just in Germany but throughout the Western industrialized world. The purpose of the following material, as of my book, is to make the reader aware of these assumptions and of the evil that can arise from their careless application.”

We will be remiss in our duty to our patients, our countrymen and our posterity if we fail to assume that it is possible that such malignity can wellspring from this movement to government control over health care.