Obamacare Architect Says Society Would Be Better Off If People Died At 75

www.zerohedge.com... ws/2014-09-24/obamacare-architect-says-society-would-be-better-if-people-only-lived-age-75

Hey Guys and Gals of The ATS Persuasion. So, we have here one of The Principal Architects of our New Healthcare System now advocating that it would be better for society in general if we all dropped dead before we turn 75.

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I would be very hesitant to oblige with This Social Engineer's
Opinion as to how long I should be shuffling around on this rock we call our home.

What do my ATS Peers think? Should we let someone like this have sway as to how long we persist here. Or should we maybe be questioning this person's Mental State? I sure know I am. Anyway, any Replies or Comments are most appreciated.

Mods, if this isn't in the right place, please feel free to move this thread and I have done a search here on ATS and haven't found anything about this on here.

OK Y'All and Thanks for reading this, Peace Arjunada

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother of Rahm Emanuel, says that society would be far better off if people quit trying to live past age 75. His new article entitled “Why I Hope To Die At 75” has the following very creepy subtitle: “An argument that society and families—and you - will be better off if nature takes its course swiftly and promptly”. In the article, Emanuel forcefully argues that the quality of life for most people is significantly diminished past the age of 75 and that once we get to that age we should refuse any more medical care that will extend our lifespans. This is quite chilling to read, considering the fact that this is coming from one of the key architects of Obamacare. Of course he never uses the term “death panels” in his article, but that is obviously what Emanuel would want in a perfect world. To Emanuel, it is inefficient to waste medical resources on those that do not have a high “quality of life”. So he says that “75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop”.

Emanuel believes in this philosophy so much that he says that he would like to die at age 75. Of course he has no intention of committing suicide, but if he happened to drop dead once he hits his 75th birthday he would be very happy about that. The following is an excerpt from his new article…

I am talking about how long I want to live and the kind and amount of health care I will consent to after 75. Americans seem to be obsessed with exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins and supplements, all in a valiant effort to cheat death and prolong life as long as possible. This has become so pervasive that it now defines a cultural type: what I call the American immortal.

I reject this aspiration. I think this manic desperation to endlessly extend life is misguided and potentially destructive. For many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop.
And so Emanuel plans to start rejecting pretty much all medical tests and treatments that will prolong his life once he reaches that age…

At 75 and beyond, I will need a good reason to even visit the doctor and take any medical test or treatment, no matter how routine and painless. And that good reason is not “It will prolong your life.” I will stop getting any regular preventive tests, screenings, or interventions. I will accept only palliative—not curative—treatments if I am suffering pain or other disability.

This means colonoscopies and other cancer-screening tests are out—and before 75. If I were diagnosed with cancer now, at 57, I would probably be treated, unless the prognosis was very poor. But 65 will be my last colonoscopy. No screening for prostate cancer at any age. (When a urologist gave me a PSA test even after I said I wasn’t interested and called me with the results, I hung up before he could tell me. He ordered the test for himself, I told him, not for me.) After 75, if I develop cancer, I will refuse treatment.

Similarly, no cardiac stress test. No pacemaker and certainly no implantable defibrillator. No heart-valve replacement or bypass surgery. If I develop emphysema or some similar disease that involves frequent exacerbations that would, normally, land me in the hospital, I will accept treatment to ameliorate the discomfort caused by the feeling of suffocation, but will refuse to be hauled off.
A couple of decades ago, an article like this would have sparked mass public outrage.

But today, this article hardly even gets any attention.

That is because this kind of philosophy has spread everywhere. It is being taught at colleges and universities across the United States and it is even represented throughout the ranks of the Obama administration.

For example, Barack Obama’s top science adviser John P. Holdren believes that implanting sterilization capsules under the skin of women could be a way to reduce the size of the population and increase the quality of life for everyone…

This is why Obama said openly that the elderly would not receive life saving health care under the then proposed Obamacare years ago. You may disagree that he said this, but he did when telling a woman under his proposed health care plan her elderly mother would not be eligible for lifesaving care.

Part of Obamacare was to ensure the earlier death of "non productive" citizens. (the elderly)

People scoffed that this was true, but it has turned out to be quite true.

Socialists/progressives/liberals see the elderly as a drain on society, too bad they won't see themselves that way when they are elderly.
Of course the socialists who pass these policies will get all the life saving healthcare they want until they are quite quite old. It is just the average american who will be denied anything but pain meds in old age.

When I lived in Europe (6 years total) the socialists were firmly in control.
At that time, smoking was not discouraged at all
(at the same time America had already gone smoke free in public buildings).

Heavy drinking was the norm and expected.

Healthy eating was not discussed or encouraged at all, while America had healthy eating and lifestyle campaigns going.. (It may have changed in recent years, I admit to not knowing)

I pondered why this was so in socialist Europe and came to a realization, these things led to early death. In a heavily socialized country the retired were a huge economic burden.

Yes end of life care is expensive, but it is just as expensive at 70 as it is at 90 and in those intervening 20 years the state is paying huge sums in retirement benefits.

So it is much cheaper to allow and not discourage unhealthy lifestyles for a socialist state, and to disallow lifesaving treatment for those who are retired.

Already posted
www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: arjunanda

I urge you to step back from the Obama potshot party and consider who these architects are cultured by.

Insurance
Medical devices
Pharma

Nothing gets done in the USG that isn't benefiting the bottom line one corporate group or another. Health care in the US is essentially run by and for profit machines. They will compromise human life in a myriad of ways to enhance profit.

The take away is --get used to it or bail on this cesspool of machines and automatons.

a reply to: arjunanda

Getting old is now a burden apparently.

I'm not saying that TPTB actively want us to die early, but it would be a convenient to them if we did. They look at the future economic pressures of old age and now we are starting to see a price put of human lives. And people of my generation and older will have to work till they drop-the age of retirement will soon be over.

To quote The Verves Bittersweet Symphony:

"Try to make ends meet-you're a slave to money than you die"

originally posted by: InverseLookingGlass
a reply to: arjunanda

I urge you to step back from the Obama potshot party and consider who these architects are cultured by.

Insurance
Medical devices
Pharma

Nothing gets done in the USG that isn't benefiting the bottom line one corporate group or another. Health care in the US is essentially run by and for profit machines. They will compromise human life in a myriad of ways to enhance profit.

The take away is --get used to it or bail on this cesspool of machines and automatons.

Pharma and Medical Devices make tons of money off the elderly, why would they want to see them die early? They are a gold mine for those companies.

As for insurance, end of life care costs the same no matter what age you are. Maybe, insurance has a motive, but Pharma and Medical Device manufacturers surely do not. However, part of Obamacare is killing off private health insurance and thus killing the companies, who I think can not be currently willing to be in the pocket of the government.

The entity that gains the most from early death due to lack of lifesaving medical care is Social Security and Medicare, and the people who pay pensions (the government pays out enormous amounts in pensions). It is the government who has the most to gain economically from killing off the elderly early.

Pharma and Medical Device makers would lose money if people died earlier.

Under socialism, whose members strongly believe that the good of society is much more important that the good for the individual,
are philosophically ready to sacrifice the unproductive so the productive can thrive.

That is a huge part of the socialist philosophy.

Progressivism is an offshoot of socialism and most liberals have also become socialists so this faction's philosophy is consistent with letting the elderly die (free of pain of course, the ever compassionate)

a reply to: arjunanda

Ever see "Logan's Run"?

Old scifi, not bad for the era…

a reply to: InverseLookingGlass

Nope HE ordered it and is responsable for it's ENTIRETY as are the signatories of authorizing it. I hope once this shakes out the charges will show it to be so.

People who advocate that people of a certain age should die, should get in the front of the line. How the hell do they think they will feel when they reach that magical killing off age? Value your elders and love them for they are worthy of life and love.

This is worrying if true, I already think that some Hospitals have ways to convienetly cause death to patients that either have no chance of living, are to old, using up space that could otherwise be used for a young person, with good insurance. When you stop and think about it, it a selfish thing, and Humans are selfish. SO I dont doubt that some in Gov and Healthcare have plans to cut off life at 75.

a reply to: Night Star

People who advocate that people of a certain age should die, should get in the front of the line.

That appears to be the case here.

Why I Hope to Die at 75, By Ezekiel J. Emanuel

Political hysteria aside... the gentleman isn't advocating killing-off the elderly. He's simply looking at the situation from an actuarial perspective. The older you get the more frequent and more expensive healthcare becomes. It's not about 'end-of-life' care. It's about the accelerating costs of the elderly. Especially with us baby-boomers getting old it is without question a huge financial burden. But no, no one is going to be going around offing your grand parents. But it makes for a tasty sound bite doesn't it?

a reply to: windword

It's one thing for someone to make the choice for themselves but for others to want to kill someone off just because they reach a certain age is a no no! There are plenty of rather healthy and vibrant people at 75. Even if their health is failing they still have a desire to enjoy life and loved ones. They have wisdom and love and compassion to offer. They matter!

originally posted by: jtma508
Political hysteria aside... the gentleman isn't advocating killing-off the elderly. He's simply looking at the situation from an actuarial perspective. The older you get the more frequent and more expensive healthcare becomes. It's not about 'end-of-life' care. It's about the accelerating costs of the elderly. Especially with us baby-boomers getting old it is without question a huge financial burden. But no, no one is going to be going around offing your grand parents. But it makes for a tasty sound bite doesn't it?

It is a sad world we live in where money matters more than human lives.

a reply to: arjunanda

It is easy to say he will refuse all test, but when it comes down to it, we will see what he really does.

Talks cheap

Sounds like "Dr." Ezekiel Emanuel is setting up an argument in favor of the IPAB.

He often speaks in suggestive ways and leads people to think he's just "talking" about something else.

Very clever. Con artists use these tricks.

a reply to: Night Star

It's one thing for someone to make the choice for themselves but for others to want to kill someone off just because they reach a certain age is a no no!

NOBODY is advocating THAT in any way, shape or form! Ezekiel Emanuel, if you read the article in question, is strictly against euthanasia.

Let me be clear about my wish. I’m neither asking for more time than is likely nor foreshortening my life. Today I am, as far as my physician and I know, very healthy, with no chronic illness. I just climbed Kilimanjaro with two of my nephews. So I am not talking about bargaining with God to live to 75 because I have a terminal illness. Nor am I talking about waking up one morning 18 years from now and ending my life through euthanasia or suicide. Since the 1990s, I have actively opposed legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. People who want to die in one of these ways tend to suffer not from unremitting pain but from depression, hopelessness, and fear of losing their dignity and control. The people they leave behind inevitably feel they have somehow failed. The answer to these symptoms is not ending a life but getting help. I have long argued that we should focus on giving all terminally ill people a good, compassionate death—not euthanasia or assisted suicide for a tiny minority.

a reply to: xuenchen

Other members, in your thread on the same topic, have already exposed the fact that this entire issue is being taken out of context and you have to read what he says. He does not say what is being implied.

It is you and others that are talking in suggestive ways to lead people from the truth and push your partisan, dishonest crusade against your political opponents.

Stories like these should be tossed in the hoax bin because it's dishonest and misleading.

ETA: I think people that continue to post crap like this should at least receive temporary bans because it is a detriment to the health of ATS and you are purposely posting incorrect information to direct opinion.

You and others like you are the con men.

It isn't right, but people didn't always live until 75. We have better medicines now, we're more sanitary, and we have shelter to keep us safe. It wasn't always that way and people died young. We had more resources and globally we were better off.

I don't think it's right to advocate people dying young, but population control. And it's been going on for years. This isn't some recent thing. We're risking overpopulation and we're running out of resources. It sucks, but it happens.

originally posted by: jtma508
He's simply looking at the situation from an actuarial perspective.

well that's one way to make the numbers work.