Where's Himmler? Richard Lamm Calls For "Better Health Care Through Rationing"

September 25, 2009 (LPAC) — Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm emerged from his crypt in academia, to post an article under the above title on HuffingtonPost.com. Lamm came to national notoriety in the early 1980s, when, as a sitting governor, he publicly argued that America's elderly have a "duty to die" and get out of the way of the younger generations. In effect, he was the public-relations grandfather of Presidential advisor Ezekiel Emanuel and of Newsweek's recent front-cover feature, "The Case For Killing Granny."

In Thursday's article, Lamm puts forward defenses otherwise advanced in some "healthcare reform" circles, against the criticism that the reforms seek to ration medical care. "... we already ration," Lamm says. "We ration whenever we make choices among the claims of individuals who are competing for scarce resources. Government, mainly through Medicaid and Medicare, pays for approximately 50% of the cost of U.S. health care. ... Having undertaken to fund some health care, public policy must be accountable for the consequences of the decision to cover some Americans and not cover others."

After summarizing the rising costs of medical care, and its percentage of GNP, Lamm asserts that "We are delivering, and the public is expecting, more medicine than we can possibly afford to sustain." He argues, as has Ezekiel Emanuel, that rationing is inevitable in health reform: "Increasing the efficiency of the existing system and ending fraud and waste, alone, will not come close to solving our volcanically growing health care costs. Rationing is the price we must pay for our creative success."

This is hardly a new viewpoint on healthcare and the economy, for Lamm. In November 1984, for instance, he asserted on the CBS "Morning News," that "the problem we have here with high-tech medicine is that really, the Faustian bargain, where in fact we get for a few extra days of life, all we have to do is pay the price that could bankrupt the country. These things are awesomely expensive. America cannot afford the health care we have right now." The difference is that in the early 1980s, Lamm and his queer views were relegated to some odd corner of the Addams Family ghoul house. Now, his views have gained entry to the White House.