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August 20, 2009

ObamaCare and FDR

By Daryl Montgomery and Jack Kemp

Would Ezekiel Emanuel want to give medical coverage to a 48 year old pre-presidential Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a wheelchair with polio? Keep in  mind was also famously a smoker who used a cigarette holder.

Pres. Roosevelt used to go for hydrotherapy treatments to Warm Springs, Georgia (he died there in spring of 1945) and for anyone familiar with "Health Czar" Emanuel's philosophies, it is realistic to assume that ObamaCare would never pay for hydrotherapy treatments of a less politically connected person than FDR who suffered from the same ailments.
 
In fact, a statue of FDR in a wheelchair placed outside the National Roosevelt Memorial (it is seen about halfway down this local Roosevelt Island, NY newspaper page) is the result of outrage by disabled people and their formal organizations at the Washington, DC, Franklin Roosevelt Memorial not including such n sculptural image to inspire the disabled. Private donations paid $1.6 million to have this wheelchair statue created and lobbied to have it placed near the entrance of the Washington memorial to Roosevelt. The memorial opened in the late 1990s and the additional statue was placed there as the Clinton Administration came to an end.
 
It seems Pres. Obama has chosen to forget the more personal aspects of the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt, as well, in an era where a signer for the deaf appears onstage at many a national political convention. As The National Organization of Disability stated in 2001 at the wheelchair statue's dedication,

"President Clinton dedicated a new statue of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a wheelchair at the FDR Memorial in Washington, D.C. on the morning of January 10, 2001. The statue, the first to depict a world leader using a wheelchair, will be located at the entrance to the seven-acre Memorial site in Potomac Park, between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials. "This dedication represents a great victory for people with disabilities. FDR's Memorial finally will acknowledge his significant disability experience, which forged his leadership qualities-courage, determination, and compassion-that enabled him to successfully lead the nation through the worst crises of the 20th century," said N.O.D. President Alan Reich. "This magnificent statue will be an inspiration to people worldwide, disabled and non-disabled alike." '

By clearly indicating a lack of willingness to help the old with disabilities (take the painkiller and skip the pacemaker) in a national healthcare system, the Obama administration would hope the physically challenged would take a different inspiration from the statue of Franklin Roosevelt: turn to stone and shut up.

Hat tip: Robin of Berkeley
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