Posted on 06/13/2012 9:13:03 PM PDT by JohnKinAK
What should be done with elderly Americans when they become very seriously ill? Should we try to save their lives or should we just let them die? Unfortunately, there is a growing consensus among the "intellectual elite" that most elderly people are not going to have a high enough "quality of life" to justify the expense of costly life saving procedures. This philosophy is now being promoted very heavily through mainstream news outlets, in our television shows and in big Hollywood movies. The elite are attempting to convince us that killing off our sick grandparents is cool and trendy. We are being told that "pulling the plug" on grandma and grandpa is compassionate (because it will end their suffering), that it is good for the environment and that it is even good for the economy. We are being told that denying life saving treatments to old people will dramatically reduce health care costs and make the system better for all of us. We are being told that it is not "efficient" for health insurance companies to shell out $100,000 for an operation that may extend the life of an elderly person by 6 months. But the truth is that all of this is part of a larger agenda that the elite are attempting to advance. As I have written about previously, the elite love death, and they truly believe that reducing the population is good for society and good for the planet. Sadly, population control propaganda has reached a fever pitch in recent months.
Time Magazine has just come out with a very shocking cover story entitled "How To Die". The article goes on and on about how wonderful and compassionate it is to remove life saving treatment from sick relatives.
A recent article by Mike Adams summarized the message of this disgusting article....
Inside, the magazine promotes a cost-saving death agenda that encourages readers to literally “pull the feeding tubes” from their dying elderly parents, causing them to dehydrate and die. This is explained as a new cost-saving measure that drastically reduces return hospital visits by the elderly… yeah, because dead people don’t return to the hospital, of course.
Many of you also probably remember the Newsweek cover story from a couple years ago that was entitled "The Case for Killing Granny".
Underneath that shocking title was the following phrase: “Curbing excessive end-of-life care is good for America.”
According to the author of that article, spending less money on the elderly is the key to successful health care reform....
The idea that we might ration health care to seniors (or anyone else) is political anathema. Politicians do not dare breathe the R word, lest they be accused—however wrongly—of trying to pull the plug on Grandma. But the need to spend less money on the elderly at the end of life is the elephant in the room in the health-reform debate. Everyone sees it but no one wants to talk about it. At a more basic level, Americans are afraid not just of dying, but of talking and thinking about death. Until Americans learn to contemplate death as more than a scientific challenge to be overcome, our health-care system will remain unfixable.
Sadly, articles like that one are becoming quite frequent in mainstream media sources.
Just a few days ago, a Bloomberg article entitled "How 'Death Panels' Can Prolong Life" declared that we must "deny treatment to people who want it" in order to hold down costs....
In short, all the Republican talk during the health-care- reform debate about “death panels” was melodramatic and unfair, but not ridiculous. One way or another, holding down health-care costs will require policies that deny treatment to people who want it. And want it because it will extend their lives.
This goes on already, all the time. Health insurance companies have been known to deny payment for treatments deemed unnecessary. Age limits for organ transplants are another example. All policies that involve denying care because of “quality of life” considerations are, in effect, “death panels.” But no society can afford to give every citizen every possible therapy. Medicare is going broke trying.
So who are we supposed to deny treatment to?
The elderly of course.
According to that Bloomberg article, we are supposed to kill off our sick grandparents because the "quality of life" they would be expected to have if they recover would not be enough to warrant spending so much to save them....
A $200,000 operation can add a year or two to the life of an octogenarian, or it can save decades of life for younger people. In a country like the U.S., with an average life expectancy of 78.5, it takes 10 septuagenarians who get an extra five years from the health-care system to balance a single 30- year-old who gets 50 extra years. Or save the life of a newborn, who then enjoys a normal life span and dies at 78.5, and you have the same impact on national life expectancy as 16 operations on septuagenarians. The average national life expectancy can increase even as the cost goes down.
This is the kind of thinking that starts happening in a society that dramatically devalues life.
If human life has little value, then it is easy to start justifying things that would have once been unthinkable.
For example, one surgeon is now suggesting that we should start harvesting organs from patients before they die....
Dr. Paul Morrissey, an associate professor of surgery at Brown University's Alpert Medical School, wrote in The American Journal of Bioethics that the protocol known as donation after cardiac death -- meaning death as a result of irreversible damage to the cardiovascular system -- has increased the number of organs available for transplant, but has a number of limitations, including the need to wait until the heart stops.
Because of the waiting time, Morrissey said that about one-third of potential donors end up not being able to donate, and many organs turn out to not be viable as a result.
Instead, he argues in favor of procuring kidneys from patients with severe irreversible brain injury whose families consent to kidney removal before their cardiac and respiratory systems stop functioning.
Do you want your organs harvested before you are dead?
Sadly, those that often do need organ transplants the most these days are often denied for "quality of life" issues as well.
For example, at one U.S. hospital a 3-year-old girl named Amelia was denied a kidney transplant that she desperately needed simply because she is considered to be "mentally retarded".
These are the kinds of decisions that are being made by doctors and by health insurance companies all over America every day.
And did you know that life-ending drugs are going to be 100% free under Obamacare?
I did not know this until I read a Christian Post article the other day....
A Christian-based legal defense alliance is warning Americans who already believe that President Barack Obama's health care plan is a bad idea that the "ObamaCare mandate is worse than you think."
"Everyone likes a good surprise, but no one likes a bad surprise. So, you're really not going to like the surprises buried in the 2,700 pages of this document," says the narrator of a short video produced by the Alliance Defense Fund.
"Did you know that with ObamaCare you will have to pay for life-saving drugs, but life-ending drugs are free. One hundred percent free. If this plan were really about health care wouldn't it be the other way around?"
Apparently they want to make it as easy to off yourself and your relatives as possible.
So where is all of this headed?
Are we eventually going to become like the Netherlands?
In the Netherlands, mobile euthanasia teams are now going door to door to help elderly patients end their lives in the comfort of their own homes.
Is that what we want?
Do we want government agents going door to door to help people die?
As I have written about previously, the elite believe that the world is massively overpopulated and they believe that all of us are ruining their planet.
So they love euthanasia, abortion and pretty much anything else that will result in more people ending up dead.
Well “pulling the plug” to me means the person is artificial life support. Me and my wife have made it clear we don’t intend to be kept alive by life support unless it is just temporary due to an accident. Extended life support - no way. These kind of questions have to be dealt with by the family on a case by case basis. “Pulling the plug” sometimes has to be done.
I finally found the one subject that will push me back into the arms of the Catholic Church. Whatever that institution’s failings, they are merciless in their condemnation of this stuff.
Yep! “Every man over 40 is a scoundrel.”
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1925/shaw-bio.html
Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness don't mean much to the dead.
“These kind of questions have to be dealt with by the family on a case by case basis. “Pulling the plug” sometimes has to be done.”
That’s what living wills are for - it should be an individual’s decision, or the immediate family’s in the event there is no living will (but even then, hopefully the family is loving, knows that person’s feelings on the subject and will honor them either way).
It should NOT be decided by government death panels, Godless progressives or those brainwashed by them.
It’s the leftist trajectory, although it appears to be shaped by American culture as it proceeds with its predictable outcome of mass murder and mayhem.
The Russians and the Chinese came from cultures that already had a long history of genocide and tyrants, and, sure enough, they got Stalin and Mao. The Cubans come from the tradition of the strongman, and there’s swaggering Castro. When the Italians embraced the left under Mussolini, it was a lot more laid back than the German technocratic model.
So here we are. We’re hiding our genocide under a layer of laws and legal precedent with abortion, and calling it “choice” to reflect a culture of individual freedom. I expect the slaughter of the old to be a lot like the slaughter of the unborn. Lawsuits will be filed. People will protest. There will be emmenations of penumbras. Supporters will call it a “choice.” The murders themselves will take place in clean, quiet places surrounded by “compassionate” helpers from the private institution in charge. No one will be forced, but the pressure of culture, media, and government will be unbearable for many. It’s almost as if the Americans had come up with a way for the population to willingly, even happily, step in the concentration camps, for their own good, of course, and the good of everyone else.
The next step after this will be the normalization of suicide. People have a right to control their own bodies, don’t you know, and since the old and infirm have a “right” to die, then everyone has the same right.
I guess I’ll live long enough to see if this prediction comes true. God help us.
In my opinion, ObamaCare/DeathCare/AuschwitzCare was designed to be the next Holocaust via Death Panels with Big Bro and Big Sis deciding who lives and who dies based on their criteria.
I know, it was his call to receive all these treatments but it is not the “quality” of life I want when I get to that point.
She is now living in a nursing home but because her meds are regulated, she eats properly, and has adults her age to socialize with (all her needs are physical, not mental) she is thriving. She practically runs the place! The Grand kids can visit Grandma in a healthy environment and are learning so much from her! I feel like I have my mom back, I wish at home but she needs 24 hour care. But mentally she's doing great! She hasn't looked so good in years! She uses a wheel chair but with physical therapy can now get around on her own. She helps other patients with various stages of dementia and Alzheimer's find there way around and visits those that can't get out of bed. I think she deserves a pay check!
If you can't tell I visited her this evening and was amazed at her progress. My children have made friends with the patients, my youngest one wants to help out so much, I think we have a nurse in the making! My daughter actually chatted with a 107 year old today! Learning about history, her memories, first hand, was such a wonderful thing for my children or anyone’s children! On Memorial day, they had a picnic and brought in a guitarist/singer that sang Patriotic songs and I swear even the patients with advanced Alzheimer's sang every word! My children listened to their stories and helped out with refreshments and the like. It was a priceless experience for them! I had to stop myself from crying like a baby! These people are actually not a drain on society, but a priceless resource!!!
Which shows no signs of reversing if people do not pry themselves away from the television.
You might add insurance companies to your list who are doing this as we speak.
Folks cant depend on anyone but their selves to deal with this issue.
As for the cost of his care, so what? Why do we assume there is only a limited amount of medical care available? Where there is demand, the market will increase the supply. More demand, higher wages for the doctors, medical technicians, etc. Higher wages, more people are eager to enter the field. It's only when the government steps in that the whole system breaks down.
“or those brainwashed by them.”
That’s the very sort of nanny-state condescension the libs do. “These people aren’t smart enough to make their own decisions.” Maybe they aren’t, but in a free society we respect their decisions about certain personal life choices. Signing a DNR order is one of those cases where we dare not second guess the individual’s choice.
If they were to off me, the scum bags who now make multiple millions on my diabetes meds. will be ruined. No more gravy train from THIS little old lady.
Karmic.
Is there a difference between "cool" and "trendy"?
Everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves whether they want to continue living.
The more relevant question of this article is whether anyone has the right to make virtual slaves of strangers to prolong their own life. Can you demand healthcare that you have no way of paying for, knowing that it will lower the quality of life for hundreds of other people ? Isn’t that what is really happening when the government must tax hundreds of other people thousands of dollars each to pay for $500,000 of longterm nursing care for a comatose octogenarian ?
I was born with no hair, no teeth, poor eyesight and could not understand what was spoken to me. All I could do was eat, sleep and cry when I pooped my pants.
I am now old and I have no hair, no teeth, poor eyesight and can only understand half of what I hear. All I can do is eat, sleep and cry when I can’t make it to the potty and poop my pants.
I long for an end to the pain that is a constant companion at this end of the circle of life for I know that there is a new life awaiting me when the circle is complete.
I pray that government will not allowed to intervene or interfere in any way with my passing.
If an individual pays their own health care, they have the right to make their own health care decisions. If an individual relies on insurance, the insurance contract governs what is and is not covered. The individual has no moral right to demand anything beyond what’s covered in the policy.
Now the poor and elderly who depend on government provided care are an entirely different matter. If you do nothing to prepare yourself for independence in your retirement, don’t expect other citizens to provide a bottomless pit of money to take care of your health needs in old age. For example, you have no moral right to demand that someone give you $10 million (or anything really) to extend your life a few months.
While I think we are morally obliged to help others, I don’t think that means the individual can help themselves to whatever they want at other people’s expense. In other words, if Mr. Taxpayer is paying, Mr. Taxpayer — not the patient — determines the level of care. People should keep this in mind, because if they don’t like Uncle Sam making the decisions, don’t depend on Uncle Sam for care.
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