It is no secret that approval of President Barack Obama’s handling of health care reform has drastically slipped as of late (to be exact, it slipped below 50 percent for the first time in July according to a Washington Post-ABC News survey).

So what are several people doing to demonstrate their discontent?

A week ago, my friend sent me a Youtube.com clip of an interchange between Rep. Barney Frank and a local citizen in Dartmouth (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtgIBKemlc). The young woman held up a photograph of Obama defaced to look like Adolf Hitler and accused Rep. Frank of supporting a “Nazi policy.”

I, like Rep. Frank, was dumbfounded. As a Jewish and gay man, Frank would have been one of the first victims of the Nazi regime…how could this woman consider it feasible to equate Frank’s support of a policy proposal with supporting a man who murdered six million Jews and millions of other people?

Following this clip, a similar one popped up on the screen – www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVS4Zgjm8HE&eurl=http. There was another exchange at a Las Vegas Town Hall in which an Israeli citizen living in America was discussing benefits of Israel’s system of socialized medicine.

In the middle of his talk, a woman shouted “Heil Hitler” at him. The man, who was Jewish, was sharing his perspective on health care based on his experiences with another country’s system…again, how does this make him comparable to Hitler?

After watching these videos, I couldn’t help but hope that these were a select few daft protestors. Once I began Google-ing this topic in more depth, however, it became clear that this wasn’t the case: “Obama vs. Hitler,” “Universal health care Nazi regime,” “Obama socialism,” “ObamaCare swastika.” The more I researched, the more shaken I became by the (countless) number of Americans who share this ignorant response to Obama’s universal health care proposal.

(People created signs that read: “Death to Obama,” a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache with the caption: “I’ve changed,” a crossed-out swastika with “Obama?” scribbled underneath, and even a cartoon arm of a Black man with the ObamaCare patch holding a gun to someone’s head and the caption: “Change you better believe in …”).

“I can see where they’re coming from. [Obama] is trying to ration legislation during the most expensive final months of people’s lives. He assumes that hospitals can be more ‘efficient.’ But what if they can’t,” my conservative-minded peer questioned one side of the issue.

(By selling health care legislation to Congress, Obama is trying to reduce federal health spending in the hopes of regulating the insurance market and covering those who are uninsured.)

“Add that to cutting health care costs and incorporating ‘end-of-life counseling’ into Medicaid and it does look a little like he’s lining up his ducks up for another sort of genocide.”

I wanted to reply, “Yeah … but the legislation would help older Americans with their drug costs by eliminating co-payments for screenings and preventive services. How is this anything resembling a genocide?”

In his blog Sweetness & Light, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh commenced the Obama v. Hitler “discussion” on Aug. 6.

The post compares the new healthcare logo – a combination of Obama’s campaign logo and the ancient Greek symbol of medicine – to the Nazi swastika. It also lists the ways in which “Democrats are like Nazis,” including their dedication to animal rights, and opposition to smoking and pollution.

Despite the political differences in the debate over health care, the use of Nazi symbolism is inappropriate and completely illogical. Not only does using this rhetoric blind people to the topic at hand, but it also trivializes the extent of the Nazi regime’s crimes against humanity. And, as Rep. Frank pointed out, it makes reasoned discourse impossible.

Instead of shouting “Heil Hitler” or doodling black squiggly marks under Obama’s nose, maybe people should be considering questions like:

• How should the government take care of the 46 million uninsured people in this country?

• Why did the 1965 law that created Medicare prohibit “any federal interference” in “the practice of medicine or the manner in which medical services are provided?”

• How will uninsured individuals benefit from universal health coverage?

• Will children will be burdened as adult taxpayers with the “cost of the health care overhaul?”

• Shouldn’t end-of-life counseling/discussions be something every American thinks about long before Medicaid age?

• Whether this “risky experiment” will hurt the economy and force even more millions to drop their current coverage – or like in Israel, Canada, London (and many other Industrialized nations in the world) – will it be beneficial to the general well-being of our country?

Originally published Sunday, Aug. 30, 2009