California Government Decides It Has The Right To Help Its Citizens Die

                California governor Jerry Brown (also known as “governor moonbeam”) has proposed a budget for 2016-17 that allocates $2.3 million for Medicaid to provide lethal drugs for assisted suicides. Estimates are that this would come to about $5,400 per patient. Who knew suicide was so expensive? Last fall, the governor signed the End of Life Act, making it legal for doctors to prescribe lethal doses of drugs for terminally ill patients who request them.

                Bizarrely, according to the National Review, the state’s Medicaid program does not allow patients access to palliative care to ease their pain. Moreover, second opinions and cancer treatments are also restricted under that program- a program that runs a deficit.

                “First, kill the old geezers” doesn’t have the same ring to it that “first, do no harm” does, but the times, they are a-changing, as the saying goes. How can the erstwhile Land of Milk and Honey be unable to come up with enough money for certain pain-killers and cancer treatments, but have no trouble finding $5,400 for each and every patient that wants to die? Only decades of progressive government can make a state more determined to help its citizens die than live.

                The official state motto was spawned by excitement over the Gold Rush in the 19^th century, when the state was young and full of dreams. Let me now use it in describing the rush to extinguish the lives of those in their Golden Years.

                “Nurse, where did you put the secobarbital? Wait…”

                “Eureka! I have found it!”