Monday, August 3, 2009

SOMETHING US ELDERS SHOULD THINK ABOUT

Bloomberg: "Daschle says health-care reform will not be pain free. Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them." If this does not sufficiently raise your ire, just remember that Senators and Congressmen have their own healthcare plan that is first dollar or very low co-pay which they are guaranteed the remainder of their lives and are not subject to this new law if it passes.

Not too long ago I fell and broke a hip. After about two weeks I figured I should see a doctor. He asked why I had not seen him sooner. Instead of telling him I was just plain stupid I could have said I was practicing life under Obama's new health plan...preparing myself for some bureaucrat to tell me I was too old to waste money on and I should get a crutch and get used to the pain.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The bland, lifeless language of the legislation hides the eventual purpose of the authors, which is to authorize rationing of health care for the sick, the elderly and the hopelessly ill. The sponsors of the legislation insist that only paranoid geezers are dumb enough to believe stuff like this, but when Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, a Republican, introduced an amendment specifically insuring that the Center for Health Outcomes and Evaluation (obviously named by the ghost of Orwell) could never put a value on a life by measuring it against bureaucratic "quality of life" and "cost-effectiveness" standards, it was rejected by a party-line vote. Such end-of-life measurements are routinely employed in European countries with socialized medicine, observes Sen. Brownback, where "elderly, disabled and medically dependent patients would be at greatest risk of being denied necessary care.

Anonymous said...

ObamaCare:

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same issue; both need hip replacement surgery.

The FIRST patient sees his doctor after waiting a month for an appointment, then four more weeks for a specialist and gets an x-ray and blood tests. Surgery is scheduled for six months from then.

The SECOND patient is examined within the hour, x-rayed the same day and has surgery the following week.

Why the difference for the two patients?

The FIRST is a Senior Citizen.


The SECOND is a Golden Retriever.

Way to go America!

rpock said...

If you think reform is tough today, just wait. We’re already practically a gerontocracy: Americans older than 50 cast more than 40 percent of the votes in the 2008 elections, and half the votes in the ’06 midterms. As the population ages — by 2030, there will be more Americans over 65 than under 18 — the power of the elderly and nearly elderly may become almost absolute. In this future, somebody will need to stand for the principle that Medicare can’t pay every bill and bless every procedure. Somebody will need to defend the younger generation’s promise (and its pocketbooks). Somebody will need to say “no” to retirees. That’s supposed to be the Republicans’ job. They should stick to doing it.

Russ Douthat New York Times

Deb's Education Corner