![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/CR5LTI2TLBF2HKNXYZZESP7P6Q.jpg\")
Spencer warns that President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are pursuing eugenics with their health policies. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\nAn eminent ER doctor and health policy expert has warned that President Donald Trump\u2019s government shutdown talk about \u201cdeserving\u201d patients mirrors a \u201ceugenics\u201d policy adopted by the Nazis. <\/p>\n
The shutdown is about to enter its fourth week after Congress failed to pass full-year funding. The White House and Speaker Mike Johnson are demanding spending cuts and immigration concessions, while Senate Democrats insist on extending ACA subsidies and undoing the summer healthcare cuts before reopening agencies.<\/p>\n
Dr. Craig Spencer, who lectures on the history of health and eugenics at Brown University and is one of the country\u2019s most influential clinician voices on emergency care, said the administration\u2019s framing echoes America\u2019s 1920s policy of sorting people by \u201cworthiness\u2026 cloaked in what\u2019s \u2018acceptable\u2019 by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spencer warns that President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are pursuing eugenics with their health policies. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a stretch to say this administration is touting a eugenics agenda, which was perfected by the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s and later adopted by the Nazis. People don\u2019t want to call it that because it feels unsayable. But it\u2019s real,\u201d Spencer told the Daily Beast.<\/p>\n
In 1920s America, eugenics was a mainstream policy movement that used bogus \u201crace science\u201d to justify restrictive immigration laws and state-mandated sterilization of people labeled \u201cunfit.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Visitors](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/EXAILVSMJBG7HPSYIAI6MUPJJQ.jpg\")
Visitors view the statue, which was created based on the measurements of approximately 100,000 American veterans, presented at a eugenics conference at the Museum of Natural History on Aug. 22, 1932, in New York City, NY. Keystone-France\/KEYSTONE-FRANCE\/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images <\/p>\n
The language of Trump\u2019s government, Spencer said, is \u201calmost the same on immigration, access to healthcare, and who deserves the fruits of government,\u201d and its \u201clogical conclusion\u2014while they won\u2019t say it out loud\u2014is letting certain people die.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been reluctant to compare what\u2019s happening now to the eugenics movement 100 years ago, but as every new day goes by I\u2019m less reluctant,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
Spencer\u2014who treated Ebola with M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res and made headlines when he survived the virus<\/a> in 2014\u2014argues the shutdown fight is part of a wider pattern in Trump-era health policy of deep federal cuts and tighter eligibility rules about who \u201cdeserves\u201d help. <\/p>\n Republicans have cast Democrats as pushing \u201cfree healthcare\u201d for undocumented people, which fact checkers say is false. Democrats, he noted, are focused on extending expiring ACA subsidies and reversing the summer cuts.<\/p>\n Spencer\u2014an emergency physician of 18 years, currently based in Rhode Island\u2014says it won\u2019t work in practice and, at the bedside, the politics collapse. He admitted he never asks about immigration status and \u201calmost never about insurance,\u201d because the job is to treat the emergency in front of him. <\/p>\n Spencer says he doesn\u2019t know a single colleague who would withhold life-saving care for lack of \u201cthe right papers.\u201d<\/p>\n Whatever the rhetoric in Washington, federal law still governs emergency rooms. Under the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTLA), Medicare-participating hospitals must screen and stabilize anyone who comes through the door, regardless of their ability to pay or their immigration status<\/p>\n On Oct. 3, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt avoided giving a direct answer<\/a> on whether ERs should treat undocumented patients, pivoting to immigration talking points.<\/p>\n![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ICXH3CTJK5ARPC7JCSH4S6OXPM.jpg\")
Dr. Craig Spencer has chosen to speak out about his concerns with the government\u2019s shutdown policy. Spencer Platt\/Getty Images <\/p>\n![\"Dr.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/YBWA4TPR2JBGRLYUZ5APQAXWFI.jpg\")
Dr. Craig Spencer, who was diagnosed with Ebola in New York City in 2014, greets some of the nurses who helped him to recovery. Spencer Platt\/Spencer Platt\/Getty Images <\/p>\n
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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, right, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, spoke about EMTLA during a news conference on the government shutdown in the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 10, 2025. Tom Williams\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images <\/p>\n