Dear Editor:

Did you know that President Obama's health-care reform is identical to Adolf Hitler's Tiergarten 4 Policy? Hitler's policy? Hitler's policy was a clever scheme for eliminating want the government considered "useless eaters", those whose lives were "not worthy to be lived." Now our current president has put this into his policy. How could he do that? By fiat, which means by decree. The controversial Section 1233 of Obama's Healthcare bill is a measure that outlined an extensive program of "death counseling" to be paid for by Medicare and Medicaid. This bill was presented in the senate but the senate prevented him from getting what he wanted. But, being the diplomat that Hitler; I mean Obama is, he went around congress and appointed Dr. Donald Berwick to implement this bill by regulation-the measure that Congress has rejected.If Obama is not stopped, this regulation will go into effect. Then the door will be opened for other regulations to follow. this measure seems innocent enough; it authorizes Medicare to pay for what is termed "voluntary advance care planning" as part of an annual "wellness visit" provided for under ObamaCare (unlike the original 1233 that called for counseling every five years, this is encouraged every year). The doctor can now advise you to forgo treatment and throw in the towel. This death counseling is an element of the "Physician Quality Reporting System" and it's a system of evaluation by physicians that determines how they get paid. The way they get paid is dependent on the number of patients who are convinced to sign "living wills," or other documents that commit them to forgo treatment. this will be an inclusive element of the physicians "quality" evaluation.Doctors will either get a bonus or be penalized, depending on how many patients they convince to agree to forgo costly medical treatment and die quietly. This counseling isn't voluntary; the government is writing the script for the doctor, who is penalized if the government doesn't like the outcome. Obama's policy is based on the premise of Hitler's policy; identify sections of the population which are "useless eaters"" who are costing too much to keep alive and get them to agree to die. Hitler also prompted euthanasia as a voluntary measure, with mass propaganda about "mercy death," which is the same thing the right-to-die lobby does today. Why should we waste money on people at the "end of life" when it could be spend on preventive care instead? is the question from Washington. This will make sense to a younger generation who live in excess and vanity.In the fall of 1939 Hitler wrote a secret memorandum and had his personal physician, Dr. Karl Brandt sign it under the title "The Destruction of Lives Unworthy of Life." He authorized physicians to act to this end; that patients considered incurable, according to the best available human judgment of their state of health, can be accorded a mercy death. The first round of mercy deaths under this program, called T4 would be done by denying treatment to those diagnosed physically or mentally ill; this is the same procedure that many advanced care directives call for. How ling before the Obama Administration will get to this part is unknown, but the cuts being made to social security and Medicare show that it won't be long.An elderly man fell on his face and hit his head while he took a walk in Nesquehoning. He was taken to the emergency room of a hospital. There he waited five hours before being treated. He wasn't even kept for observation, but sent home. He said the experience "was terrible" and that no one should be treated like that. Paul Martin, a man in his 80s from Lehighton suffered many health issues in the past. When a worried pharmacist caught a mistake on the prescription that his physician had written, he immediately left his doctor and found another. This doctor had three other practices and had no time for him.When was the last time you trusted your doctor to know your personal health when you had a visit, or even know who you are? There is such an impersonal and invasive calculating procedure to medicine today. How many of you are being treated by a Physician's Assistant? How many of you have a problem with that? This is not a good time to have blind faith in physician who does not know you, or more frightening, an inexperienced Physician's Assistant who doesn't know you. If you have a good doctor, that you can trust and who knows you, then feel truly blessed.Faye RuckhardtNesquehoning