http://spectator.org/blog/2009/06/25/obama-wants-to-let-those-pesky Obama Wants to Let Those Pesky Geezers Die By Matthew Vadum on 6.25.09 @ 2:36PM In a rare moment of candor, President Obama explained to an audience how government-run healthcare would work in America. According to the Los Angeles Times: President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care. In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care." He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller." Obama said he has personal familiarity with such a dilemma. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given less than nine months to live, he said. She fell and broke her hip, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?" [...] So, old people: screw you. In the future Uncle Sam will put you on an ice floe and let you float away to your heavenly reward. It gives new meaning to the Latin phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." (In English, How sweet and glorious it is to die for one's country.) Medical decisions should be made by patients, their families, and their doctors, not by government bureaucrats, but that's ObamaCare for you.
we do need to ask these questions as treatments become more expensive and technology advances. does a 90 year old person with alzheimers get a heart transplant paid for by tax payers through medicare?
I've seen stats that show up to 50% of all medical costs are incurred during the last 6 months of ones life. Most of course, are elderly. When the states go belly up, when medicare goes insolvent... The decision will be made. Right now it may seem ludicrous to many, but the reality is this. We are all in a ship lost at sea. There is only on sack of grain left. Only enough to feed 90% of the passengers. 10% of the passengers are almost dead - feeding them would only delay their death by days if not hours. What DO YOU DO? Who do you feed? That's the equivalent moral dilemma we will face very soon.
sombody has to make the decision and the government is paying for it so they(us as taxpayers) should have a say.
Well, $1,000,000 can buy an awful lot of preventative care for hundreds (maybe close to a thousand) of infants and toddlers, that will go a great length to increasing the odds they live a healthy, full life, and about 3 to 6 months for a very sick, maybe terminally ill,, intensely treated, 80+ year old in hospital, who will have a shitty quality of life even if they eke out another few months. You think I'm jaded or cynical to point out this REAL LIFE choice we all have to make? You who choose to ignore it will only run government and individual debt higher and higher. It's life, reality, the cold, hard facts. In health care, an ounce of prevention at a young age is worth a million pounds of attempted cure at an old, frail one. And I will walk the walk. If I'm on my death bed when I'm old, with cancer or some shit, and the insurance company is spending 8 thousand per day to keep me alive, whether it's coming from the tax payers or my private insurance, and I'm old and sick, keep me comfortable and let me fade peacefully, and preserve health care resources for where they can do the most good. Until this country and its citizens acknowledge this as the rational AND moral path, we are FUBAR.
No, the governmet isn't paying for it. This socialist bull crap doesn't fly. You must be 20 or 30. The young never think they will get old or be in that situation. Watch "Soylent Green" and "Logan's Run" to see where this thinking could lead.
Obama has said he "... plans to end Social Security and Medicare within 10 years..." This would be one way. Another would be a little 5-cent, .22 behind the ear for anyone old and ill. Save $TRILLIONS in costs to the regime.
The same amoral commie cunts who favor abortion and social engineering will now fall over themselves as proponents of de facto state sponsored euthanasia. For the greater good of course. I could just as easily make the same argument. Why waste money on prenatal care for babies born to the indignant when they'll only die several years later in a drive-by or from a drug overdose? How noble to stiff the elderly-some of whom paid literally millions in Federal taxes so that Ghetto Nation can receive comped, pro-bono care paid for by the very taxes of those older folks who toil in serfdom for Big Brother.