The run-up to Obamacare included a much-derided comment from Sarah Palin regarding the Obamacare committees charged with deciding medical care to be provided (or not provided) in various circumstances, including terminal ones. She called them: “death panels: and was duly crucified.
We know that in politics, one of the unforgivable offenses is providing unwanted truth, a common failing of Palins’ and of course, the exact situation in this case. One of the fundamental shifts in U.S. health care was the result of insurers taking over its funding while religious values for human life were being dropped by business and government leaders. A life was thereby changed from priceless to a commodity subject to cost-effective analysis.
Obamacare primarily added some 19 million or maybe 31 million new beneficiaries (depending on when the President or his staff was speaking) and the funding for that began with a Medicare cut. The money for the new patients had to come from somewhere in a time of existing deficits; it started at the expense of seniors, though that was not enough for the purpose.
Seniors see, aren’t contributors and they need more care than younger folk; that’s simply uneconomic. The younger folk still contribute and will continue to do that; they’re therefore worth more to society, right? That’s the bottom line in collectivist thinking. It doesn’t sell too well to voters over say, 50 or so however, so it’s not advertised, right? That would be, uh, ‘inconvenient.’ But it’s built into the Obamacare law. though with plausible deniability.
A Japanese government official has just laid it on the table for the Japanese; calling for the elderly to: “Hurry up and die,” pointing out that’s their duty to society. He is logically enough, the Finance Minister. This will increasingly be the policy of governments everywhere as the growing numbers of elderly press on static or shrinking numbers of younger workers in many places. In the U.S, the retiring baby boomers are forming a huge load for their fewer descendants to carry, especially in a declining economy while facing an enormous government debt to pay. However, the unpleasantness of these facts does nothing to make them go away nor does the politicians’ ignoring them in public. They’re not ignored behind closed doors, though. Hence Palin’s outing the truth buried in Obamacare caused so much fuss to get it buried again. You may have noted that the little boy who outed the Emperor’s nudity was never heard from again… Back in the U.S, the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C..has assembled a panel of experts to ‘improve’ end-of-life care advice for the government. .
Assuming you’re not presently moribund, your first personal notice of what’s happening to you will be the onset of ‘counseling’ with regards to your own, personal end-of-life. It’ll come from the folks you’ve always assumed intended to keep you going until your wheels fell off. Maybe you want to review that assumption…
You know of Richard Lamm, former gov of Colorado, who said “We’ve got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life.” That was in 1984. He’s 77 now still working at Univ of Denver, holding a job some younger person might like. I guess he’s still useful and efficient. Or maybe it’s just what’s “good for me is not for thee.”
It has been demonstrated that the content of advice for the aged tends to be inversely proportional to the age of the advisor…
It’s been some years since I watched the movie “Soylent Green”—
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
—and it’s about time to revisit the scenario; it’s coming soon to a neighbourhood, not theatre, near you anyway (dammit, I might just revisit the “Logan’s Run” movie too) …
Let’s hope we can hold off “Fahrenheit 451″…