Captain Louis Renault

Captain Louis Renault

Expressing shock at John Edwards' proposal for mandatory health care
screening Boston Herald editors show they are clueless about what the
psychiatric industry has been doing for many years. (Herald editorial staff,
"Big Brother health care," September 9, 2007) Saying "mandatory medical checkups
would be a step toward a repellent dictatorship" shows there is no awareness
that began many years ago.
Civil commitment statutes show that campaign contributions created a system
of taking freedoms based upon personal opinions. Psychiatrists have been
"empowered and dangerous" for many years.
Illinois has a law requiring pregnant woman and all persons zero to 18
years to be evaluated for mental health. George Bush has a New Freedom
Initiative which has only been minimally funded to do the same for all citizens.
Why are the nefarious machinations of psychiatrists and their drug company
mentors been ignored by the watchdogs of American freedom, the journalists? Is
there a prejudice among us?
Asking "What will happen to them? (people who don’t choose to see a doctor
when there’s nothing wrong) Prison terms?" Well, that already happens when there
are allegations and accusations of mental illness. Why not do it for rashes and
broken legs too?
The editors lament "the government would make medical decisions." Well,
duh. They already do that with accusations of mental illness. Police make
medical diagnoses now. Relatives, neighbors, lovers make psychiatric diagnoses
that are reported by journalists. Why not for real illnesses too? Why
discriminate against the psychiatrists? They claim to be human too.

Roy Bercaw, Editor ENOUGH ROOM

Big Brother health care
By Herald editorial staff
Sunday, September 9, 2007

John Edwards wants to coerce us all into good health. He’s said so flat out and
practically nobody has called him on it.

This isn’t another nanny-state proposal. If he could pull it off, it would be
Big Brother in the saddle, empowered and dangerous.

In Tipton, Iowa, last week, discussing the health plan he would try to get
enacted, Edwards said, “It requires that everybody get preventive care.” And he
elaborated a little bit, “If you are going to be in the system, you can’t choose
not to go to the doctor for 20 years.”

For example, women would be required to have regular mammograms in an effort to
find the “first trace of problem.” (Edwards’ wife has breast cancer.)

These quotes come from an Associated Press story that was ignored by the
gatekeeper newspapers in Washington and New York. Even so, candidates monitor
each other and you’d think one of them, especially a Republican, would have
raised questions. (The Captain’s Quarters blog alerted us to the issue.)

Edwards left a host of questions screaming for answers. If his $120 billion
system (which hasn’t been specified in detail) covers “every single American,”
as he has been at pains to stress, it can’t expel people who don’t choose to see
a doctor when there’s nothing wrong, can it? What will happen to them? Prison
terms? Fines? Bigger co-pays? Getting thrown into a police car for a trip to a
physician, where the hapless miscreants have to read gardening magazines from
1999 until the doctor could see them?

This would mean the government would make medical decisions - and waste
resources right and left, since most checkups will find nothing wrong. At what
age would doctor visits for adults have to begin? Where professional societies
disagree on what should be done and when (as they have with breast cancer), who
decides?

Requirements may well be an essential part of arranging health care - an
individual mandate to carry insurance is the heart of the new Massachusetts
health plan for example, just as auto coverage is mandatory in many states. But
mandatory medical checkups would be a step toward a repellent dictatorship.
Article URL:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorial/view.bg?articleid=1030204