The parents of Charlie Gard have announced that they will let their 11-month-old son die. After months of fighting to save his life and free him from the death grip of the British medical system, the British boy with mitochondrial depletion syndrome, a rare genetic disease that causes progressive muscle weakness, will soon be removed from life support.
Twila Brase, president and co-founder of Citizens' Council for Health Freedom (CCHF, www.cchfreedom.org), released the following statement after the sad news.
"This outcome of socialized medicine should give all national health care advocates pause," Brase said. "Charlie's parents had the money to try to save him but the British National Health Service and the courts of England wouldn't let them try. As an editorial in The Wall Street Journal recently asked, 'Whose baby is Charlie, anyway--his parents' or the state's?'
"As repeal of the Affordable Care Act rages on, the realities of government control over the lives of vulnerable, sick and injured citizen is now front and center," Brase continued. "Saving Charlie didn't work. Despite $1.8 million in charity gifts and Congress willing to make him a permanent resident of the U.S. to give him a chance at life, too much time was wasted in the battle against the government. While U.K. courts ruled to let him die and his parents fought to let him live, the muscle-wasting disease was given too much time to do its damage.
"Charlie Gard has shown us our future under the Affordable Care Act. The ACA will lead to many American 'Charlie Gards.' Young ones and old ones. And many we won't hear about.
"We must tell Congress to repeal the entire law--all 2,700 pages of the Affordable Care Act and its 20,000 pages of regulations," Brase concluded. "A two-page bill (H.R. 1718) would be real repeal. GOP leadership should stop making false claims of repeal that leave much of the ACA in place. As one former GOP healthcare analyst wrote in The Federalist, the current plan to vote on the 'motion to proceed' is a 'sucker's bet.' So, in honor of little Charlie Gard, tell Congress to vote for #RealRepeal."
