Gavin Newsom, Poster Boy for Liberalism, Confirms the Dark Direction of Socialized Medicine

Gavin Newsom, Poster Boy for Liberalism, Confirms the Dark Direction of Socialized Medicine

America is coming up on the tenth anniversary of Obama/Pelosi’s unconscionable, ‘you’ve got to pass it to find out what’s in it’, first pass attempt at socialized medicine called Obamacare. More than a few observers raised alarm at the time at where socialized medicine might lead, and California Governor Gavin Newsom just delivered fresh confirmation of that alarm.

In his 2020 “State of the State” address, Newsom proclaimed, “Health care and housing can no longer be divorced. After all, what’s more fundamental to a person’s well-being than a roof over their head? Doctors should be able to write prescriptions for housing the same way they do for insulin and antibiotics.”

Wow.

Here’s a portion of what we wrote in “Brushfires of Freedom” a little more than 10 years ago:

What happened in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 21, 2010 was an attempt to drive a stake in the heart of America’s central organizing tenet: our faith in and reliance upon the God of Judeo-Christian theology. …

The nationalization of healthcare does not reflect a harmless swing of the political pendulum that does not concern the church. …

It is the singular method of forcing all Americans, and by extension, all the rest of humanity, to fully and finally accept human government in place of God.

If you think that last sentence is alarmist or too extreme, sit yourself down and force yourself to think again. The design of nationalized healthcare is that human government becomes the definer and regulator of what is called ‘health’ for all of the governed, and the sole determiner of what life’s potential shall be for any individual. Do you not see how absolute and far-reaching that is? Everything we eat, drink, think, say or do can be regulated in the name of the government’s evaluation of its impact on our physical and mental health. Everything.

Back to Governor Newsom:

“This year, we have proposed CalAIM, a once-in-a-generation reform of our Medi-Cal system, based on the obvious, but long-ignored principle, that physical health and brain health are inextricably linked.

After all, 10 million Californians—1 in 4—suffer from some type of behavioral health condition. It’s not a narrow issue, nor a new one.

The deeper truth is that our healthcare system has been designed to treat some of our parts, not the sum of our parts. That must change.”

So from the mount of secular wisdom, at the height of government power, and in the name of healthcare, the Newsoms of the world have determined that we shall solve homelessness by a doctor’s prescription for shelter.

More importantly, the Newsoms of the world have determined that our heretofore inadequate healthcare system treats only ‘some of our parts (presumably referring to organic or functional disease), not the sum of our parts (presumably referring to the ‘whole man’ and his/her happiness)’.

Just how big of a leap do you think it is to go from government-controlled socialized medicine determined to treat the whole man, to government-controlled determinations of exactly what that man or woman can ‘eat, drink, think, say or do’—i.e., to a determination of what constitutes mental health for that whole man?

It’s not a leap at all; it’s a logical next step that may even find its way into Newsom’s CalAIM legislation. And you can bet your last dollar that no California government definition of mental health will include ‘hateful’, ugly attitudes about marriage being between one man and one woman; or about abortion being anything other than the exercise of ‘reproductive rights’.

Where is God in all this? The answer is: nowhere.   You can read Governor Newsom’s address for yourself: there is not one mention of God or faith or freedom. There is talk of ‘people stabilized with rent subsidies’ and ‘people moved off the streets.’ There is no talk of people redeemed, reformed, or healed.

Governor Newsom would no doubt protest that his speech included and excluded exactly what it should, because as a poster boy for liberalism, he knows to hallow ‘separation of church and state’.

Back to Brushfires of Freedom in 2010:

…as an outgrowth of the gross perversion of the notion of separation of church and state, the nationalization of healthcare necessarily elevates a 100% godless view of men, women and children—i.e., the state’s view—into controlling law, and in its godlessness it is necessarily amoral and immoral. Think about this for a moment. The government thinks your attitudes toward abortion, homosexuality, marriage and sin generally are a phobia that raises the cost of caring for your health, and also thinks those attitudes are coming from your church. How about some new regulations ordering the churches to stop teaching these ideas that harm the state’s view of what’s best for your health?

Think this could never happen? Don’t be a fool. …

The founders of America knew that too much power in human government leads to tyranny. That’s why they designed a limited government based first and foremost on an affirmation of the preeminent role of the Creator and of His relation to the free men and women of His creation, including the ‘endowment’ of them with inalienable individual rights. The nationalization of healthcare and its attendant government control of health decisions cannot possibly be reconciled in any way, shape, manner or form with a God-given, inalienable individual right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That is why when it is imposed on America, it is an altogether different level of threat to humanity than in any other place on earth where socialized medicine has been tried (and socialized medicine has been a disaster in every one of those places, even without the broader implications on faith that are at stake in America). There is no excuse for people of faith to not see this.

California prides itself on being the vanguard of America’s future. Let’s hope not. It’s way beyond the capacity of one post to address how best to reinsert faith and freedom into social policies for 2020 that will promote the long-term well-being of Americans. Just know: the founding fathers gave us the eternal template in the Declaration of Independence. Individual freedom and responsibility under God works; socialism, which is almost always aligned with atheism, doesn’t.

Eric Georgatos is a former corporate lawyer who operated the Brushfires of Freedom blog from 2008-2016 (a book of top postings from the blog, including the posting “It’s About God, America!!!” from which the excerpts quoted in this article are taken, is available elsewhere on this site).