"One of the Worst Mistakes in the History of the Republic"

All right, time for a serious topic. There are all too many serious topics out there these days -- it's overwhelming to the extent that much of the time I would rather focus on "time out" subjects here -- but this article sent such a cold chill up my spine that I could not simply read it, shake my head, and say one more prayer, as I have usually done in recent months:

Today President Obama, stumping on national television for his socialized health care plan, suggested "...one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care."

Mr. Obama said, "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

What's unspoken in his statement, of course, is that if his health care plan passes, it won't be patients, families, and doctors making that decision, but the government, which would approve care based on age, likelihood of recovery, and other factors, just as is already happening in the UK, Canada, and other countries with socialized medicine.

It's not a big leap to imagine that many of those in a society who are unwilling to protect the unborn won't have much respect for the elderly or the ill, either. (It's worth remembering that the President himself, by his own words and actions, clearly supports infanticide and denial of care to babies who survived abortions.) Are we willing to become a society which focuses on handing out painkillers to the elderly or ill and denying other options, so that money can be saved to treat those who are younger, healthier, or more privileged? If socialized medicine passes, that's coming.

When a doctor challenged Mr. Obama that "elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loved ones get sick they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it's not provided by insurance," Mr. Obama would not commit for his own family to be treated strictly under the plan he is proposing.

Of course not.

John Hinderaker at Power Line: "But the worst thing about socialized medicine isn't its ruinous cost, or the rationing of medicine, or the inevitable decline in quality. It's the change it implies in the relationship between the individual and the state. As Mark Steyn has written, once a country adopts socialized medicine, there is no such thing as a freeborn citizen. Every child is born a ward of the state.

"Congress is on the brink of making one of the worst mistakes in the history of the Republic. It remains to be seen whether the disaster that is socialized medicine can be averted."

Thursday Update: Ed Morrissey on "Obama's Michael Dukakis Moment": "If ObamaCare isn’t good enough for Sasha, Malia, or Michelle, then it’s not good enough for America."

And we haven't even addressed that Congress specifically exempts itself from receiving health care under the plan being created, or that union employees would be exempted from paying tax on their health care plans.

To paraphrase Orwell, apparently some animals are "more equal than others."

Update: Obama's "take the painkiller" line is even more chilling when you hear it in complete context: it was part of an answer to a woman whose 105-year-old mother received a pacemaker at age 100 and was concerned about arbitrary age cutoffs for treatment. Obama's answer was that doctors cannot consider subjective factors like "spirit" and that in many cases the elderly are "better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

Nowhere in his answer did he affirmatively agree that there needs to be room in a government-run plan for someone like this century-old woman to receive a pacemaker or other procedure...he immediately jumped to "take the painkiller."

Just...wow.

Here's some analysis from Karl at Hot Air, including Obama's "Hurry up and die already" moment.

And Ed Morrissey writes about the $4 trillion price tag -- just for starters -- which would be for a plan which still doesn't cover everyone, provides care at sub-optimum levels, and throws a third of Americans off their current private plans and into the government system.

Those who want to massively overhaul our healthcare system seem to want to use a bazooka to kill a fly. Why not focus first on making the current government-run plans solvent?

Update: Welcome to readers of Yahoo News!