2025 health care politics echo 1939
Whether you binge-watched four seasons of “The Man in the High Castle” science fiction series during the long days of COVID-19 or watched the 14-minute long history-based docudrama “Forgive Us Our Trespasses” more recently, there is a common thread.
Both showed the result of Aktion T4, which was signed into law effective September 1, 1939. It made murder “legal” in Germany for those with disabilities and those who were mentally ill. In addition to that initiative, Aktion 14f13 legalized the murder of the elderly, sick and others detained in concentration camps who were deemed no longer fit to work.
What is troubling is to have a leader who, in an Oval Office meeting with disability advocates, reportedly said: “Those people… The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.” Die-hard supporters of this cold-hearted man should ask themselves if they would be willing to sacrifice a family member to prove their allegiance to that cruel man and his movement.
As far as “legalizing” an early death for many Americans, it appears that making health insurance unaffordable will achieve the same goal on a slightly longer timeframe, just as the early mismanagement of COVID-19 did during his first term. Having over one million Americans permanently taken off the roles of Social Security and Medicare in such a short period of time must have made some conservatives and perhaps future architects of Project 2025 silently or openly applaud. Let’s make state-sanctioned death illegal again.