Posted on 08/15/2009 5:14:52 AM PDT by libstripper
Some years ago, when I was a slip of a lad, I found myself commiserating with a distinguished American songwriter about the death of one of his colleagues. My 23-year old girlfriend found all the condolence talk a bit of a bummer and was anxious to cut to the chase and get outta there. "Well," she said breezily. "He had a good innings. He was 85."
"That's easy for you to say," he said. "I'm 84."
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Geez, THIS is the article that OUGHT to be e-mail blasted to everyone in the country!
Good one Mark!
....
But, under any government system that interjects a bureaucracy between you and your health, the elderly and not so elderly get denied treatment. And there's nothing you can do about it because, ultimately, government health represents the nationalization of your body.
STEYN BUMP!!
God, please don't let 'bama pass health care...
Great line!
The problem is that Obama’s “American Auschwitz Bill” needs acceptance so that the One isn’t embarrassed when it flops.
Bingo! Even better, what we're after should be called "medical treatment," as Thomas Sowell consistently says.
bttt
The whole thing has nothing to do with health care.
The Medicare system is bankrupt. The Medicaid system is bankrupt.
The hospitals on the SW border are bankrupt due to the illegals flooding the system.
Obamanation care is designed to end those plans over time, suck money into the government’s new programs and parcel treatment out using the best way to do it: Statistics.
Older, younger less viable get less care.
The Federal Behemoth needs all the tax money it can suck up and Obamanation Care is the way to do it.
Follow the money
BTW, Social Security is on the bankrupt list next year. What do you suppose the elite are going to do with that?
bookmark
“American Auschwitz Bill” - That is a keeper.
This will happen irrespective of whether Obamacare is enacted or not, or whether conservatives or liberals are in power. It's simply impossible to tax the young and middle aged enough to support unlimited access to unlimited medical technology at the ratio of 1.5 taxpayers per recipient.
If there is a Medicare program in 2035, it will be so different from today's program as to be unrecognizable. Or - there will be no Medicare, and retirees' health care will be determined by what they and their families can afford to pay out of pocket.
I believe America will never force suicide or deny basic life support - but the era of hip replacements and AICDs for nonagerians will be over.
HANDS OFF OUR TOMBS!
What happened to “it’s my body” dealio?
I wonder what age these bureaucrats will determine is “too old” to treat. They say 50 is the new middle age so I assume that there’s a new benchmark for old as well. We’re living longer, healthier lives (due to our current healthcare) but I doubt that will be taken into consideration by the pile of statistics they use to determine “end of life”.
And once it’s carved in stone in their socialist takeover, they will probably only adjust downward in the future even if we live to be 150 because some 60-year old woman will never be able to contribute to society the way a 20-year old can.
The problem with government health systems is not that they pull the plug on Grandma. It’s that Grandma has a hell of a time getting plugged in in the first place. The only way to “control costs” is to restrict access to treatment, and the easiest people to deny treatment to are the oldsters. Don’t worry, it’s all very scientific.
In Britain, they use a “Quality-Adjusted Life Year” formula to decide that you don’t really need that new knee because you’re gonna die in a year or two, maybe a decade-and-a-half tops. So it’s in the national interest for you to go around hobbling in pain rather than divert “finite resources” away from productive members of society to a useless old geezer like you. And you’d be surprised how quickly geezerdom kicks in: A couple of years back, some Quebec facilities were attributing death from hospital-contracted infection of anyone over 55 to “old age.” Well, he had a good innings. He was 57.
This ought to be of particular concern to Americans. As is often pointed out, U.S. life expectancy (78.06 years) lags behind other developed nations with government health care (United Kingdom 78.7, Germany 78.95, Sweden 80.63). So proponents of Obamacare are all but offering an extra “full year” of Euro-Canadian geriatric leisure as a signing bonus.
“Life expectancy” is a very crude indicator. Afghanistan has a life expectancy of 43. Does this mean the geriatric wards of Kandahar are full of Pushtun Jennifer Lopezes and Julia Robertses? No. What it means is that, if you manage to survive the country’s appalling infant-mortality rates, you have a sporting chance of eking out your three-score-and-ten. To say that people in Afghanistan can expect to live till 43 is a bit like saying the couple at No. 6 Elm Street are straight, and the couple at No. 8 are gay so the entire street is bisexual.
And if we get them to stay in the workforce, paying in rather than drawing down, until age 80 or so, that's the only way the Medicare program can be salvaged from financial collapse.
bookmark.
“because some 60-year old woman will never be able to contribute to society the way a 20-year old can.”
I understand your point but based on what I’ve seen, I’d take the 60 year old.
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