10 Feb 98

To:
Letter to the Editor
USA Today 

Recently, your editorial page included debate over whether or not Dr. David Satcher should be appointed to the post of Surgeon General.  Your view was in favor of appointing him, while the opposing view was against.  However, neither side even thought to question whether or not the post of Surgeon General should even exist.

John Ashcroft states that this nomination is another way that the current administration is trying to impose its political views.  The very existence of this post could result in nothing less.  When the government gets involved in medicine--in any form--it is only a question of whose political views will be imposed.  As a result, the rights of both doctors and patients are in jeopardy because freedom of choice will no longer be possible.

In your view, the “nation has been without its family doctor for more than three years.”  Is it the government’s responsibility to be appointing family doctors?  No, it should be the [right] of each and every individual in this country to make their own choices regarding health.  And that should include choosing doctors, whether or not to smoke, or even to have an abortion--partial birth or otherwise.

If the nation’s health is at risk and truly the concern here, it is not because of which Surgeon General is in charge.  Rather, it is at risk to the extent that the government is involved at all.  The nation’s health does not depend on the dictates of a government appointed bureaucrat.  It depends on medical research, life saving technology, private corporations, and skilled medical professionals.  As Ayn Rand shows us in Atlas Shrugged, all of these can only exist in a free capitalist society.

 Eric J. Lakits
Westland, MI