Liberty Minute August 13 2013

What will happen when bureaucrats, rather than doctors, are in charge of medical treatment decisions? The case of Atlanta teenager Anthony Stokes provides one potentially terrifying answer.

Stokes is an otherwise healthy 15-year-old who suffers from an enlarged heart and has six months to live. However, the young man has been informed that he is not a candidate for a transplant. His mother, Melencia Hamilton, reports that she and her son have been told by Children?s Healthcare of Atlanta that Anthony isn?t eligible because of what was called a ?history of non-compliance? ? which apparently means poor grades and trouble with the police.

Christine Young Brown of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference says that the 15-year-old has ?been given a death sentence.? While claiming that it is trying to work with Anthony?s family, the hospital refuses to provide additional details about the case.

As the Obamacare system takes hold, crucial treatment decisions will increasingly be made by government bureaucrats on the basis of social, political, and economic standards, rather than the needs of the patient and the best judgment of his doctor. They will have unlimited access to personal information on patients, and thus unlimited potential reasons to deny treatment to those they deem to be ?non-compliant.?

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.