This story from Massachusetts is a nice preview of what comes next with ObamCare.

The family of Justina Pelletier, the 15-year-old girl at the center of a battle spanning two states and two prestigious hospitals, is devastated but defiant after a Massachusetts judge gave permanent custody of the girl to the state’s Department of Children and Families.

Speaking a day after Massachusetts juvenile court Judge Joseph Johnston issued a four-page ruling blasting Pelletier’s parents for being verbally abusive and complicating efforts to bring the West Hartford, Conn., family together, Lou Pelletier told Fox News Channel the Bay State bureaucracy has been aligned against his family from the beginning.

What exactly happened that caused the state to take this child from her parents?

The Massachusetts Department of Children and Families took emergency custody of Justina on Valentine’s Day 2013 after doctors at Tufts Medical Center, which had been treating her for a rare condition, and doctors as Boston Children’s Hospital, clashed over the cause of her medical problems, which included difficulty eating and walking.

At Tufts, Justina had been treated for mitochondrial disease, a group of rare genetic disorders affecting cellular energy production. When Justina began experiencing some gastrointestinal problems, the Tufts doctor treating her, Dr. Mark Korson, wanted the girl to visit Dr. Alejandro Flores at Boston Children’s Hospital, according to the family’s attorney, Phil Moran. Flores had treated Justina in the past, Moran said, and Korson thought it beneficial for the teen to see a gastroenterologist.

What happened next was a “tragic nightmare” for Justina and her family, Moran told FoxNews.com.

Justina was taken by ambulance to Boston Children’s Hospital because she was in a wheelchair at the time and a heavy snow storm was blanketing the region. Because she arrived by ambulance, she was taken directly into the hospital’s emergency room, where a “resident refused to send her to Dr. Flores” and, “declared this was his case,” according to Moran. He said the unnamed resident then called upon a psychologist who diagnosed Justina with somatoform disorder — a mental condition in which a patient experiences symptoms that are real but have no physical or biological explanation. Justina was diagnosed with the disorder “within 25 minutes,” Moran claims.

The Pelletier family rejected the new psychiatric diagnosis and wanted to bring Justina back to Tufts, Moran said. He claims the hospital tried to force the girl’s parents to sign papers preventing them from seeking another opinion.

After tempers flared between the Pelletiers and staff at Boston Children’s, the hospital notified the state that it suspected the parents of medical child abuse.

The girl was kept at Boston Children’s psychiatric ward for nearly a year, but was then slated to be transferred to another state facility. Johnston said the family, which vented its anger in various media interviews, hampered efforts to have her placed as near them as possible. She is currently being held at the Wayside Youth and Family Support Network facility in Framingham, Mass.

This is how authoritarian regimes work. People always focus on the violence, but the real tool of terror is the process. Innocent people get tangled in a system that makes no sense and operates at the whim of functionaries. Appeals to justice just anger the unaccountable bureaucrats, who then use their knowledge of the system to torment the person complaining about the system. The victims have no recourse. There’s no one to whom they can appeal. The process is a punishment with no appeal.