Monday, October 13, 2014

Should Americans Have A Duty To Die At 75?

October 13, 2014

Good morning.  It's gray outside today but it is warmer.  We are at the beginning of a week of warmer temps.   Days will be in the high 60's to mid 70's, and nights will be in the low 50's.  Oh my, I just love it!

Did that title grab at you?  It was the headline (big big headline) on a page in this weekend's newspaper.  According to the newspaper:

"Ezekiel Emanuel, a physician and one of the architects of Obamacare, writes in the October issue of the Atlantic Monthly that Americans are too obsessed with living long lives.  For many reasons, including diminished mobility, a ""tsunami"" of dementia, and sparing adult children from the pain of a long decline, Emanuel argues that 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop"

"Emanuel insists he isn't advocating death at 75 as a way to ration health care or save money.  But with health care costs outpacing official estimates, conservative critics of the Affordable Care Act worry Emanuel's musings might eventually become law."

In a commentary by Ben Boychuk, Mr Boychuk writes:  "Emanuel coauthored a 2009 article for Lancet, a widely read and well-respected medical journal published weekly in the United Kingdom, which laid out ""Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions.""   Emanuel and his colleagues considered how best to allocate resources based on several different models before settling on a ""complete lives system."" Put simply,  it prioritizes young people at the expense of old people."

Is it any wonder that I have more crabby days than I should?  This year I will reach that magic age where, according to Mr. Emanuel, I should dig myself a big hole and jump in and pull the dirt in over me.  Gosh, that only leaves me a few weeks to finish my Christmas afghans.  I don't know if that's going to be enough time.

I'm sorry to disappoint Mr. Emanuel and Obamacare, but my meds are expensive because I have asthma.  Being old has nothing to do with it.  Furthermore, if I'm really that decrepid and useless, why do I have to still pay taxes?

It costs the health care system  (my tax dollars)  more to give free drugs and medical care to all the illegal aliens than it does to pay for our senior citizens' health care.  If the government would take back just one teensy weensy bag of the billions of dollars that it gives away each year, it would have plenty of money to take care of our Social Security system and health care for us old geezers.

Regardless of how little this government thinks of old farts like me, I think I'll just hang around a while and see if I can't throw a monkey wrench into their plans for us useless citizens.

I'm done ranting for now.  If I keep on, my blood pressure will just go up.  Oh no!!  Then I'll have to take some more medicine!!  Oh dear, my bad!!  $ $ $ $

I had an inquiry as to what "Wildflowers" looked like as yarn.  So here's a swatch that I downloaded from the Red Heart Yarn website.  Pretty, yes?


Pogo has been in the pantry barking his little head off for the past ten or fifteen minutes.  So, I think I need to go see what is annoying him.  Most likely, Sunshine is in the laundry room taunting him.  I think it's time I took another "crazy pill."  (This image download from the web - author unknown)


That's it for this morning.  So, till tomorrow, Y'all have a magnificent day.

Hugs, Edna B.

4 comments:

LV said...

Edna, there will be better days. Not sure if I will live long enough to see it in our government. One thing is sure, they want to get rid of us old seniors. I will join you and live till 100.

Angelicastar said...

If they feel like age 75 should be the end of life, I feel sorry for the stupidity of some of the experts that they call themselves. I hope to live as many years As God let me. 100 is alright with me. They should take some of these young ones who will never work off free housing and food stamps and give it to us who built the social security system because we weren't afraid to go to work. One lady across the street from me said she get one-thousand dollars a month in food stamps when I worked 40 years( before I had to retire because of health reasons)and they told me I get too much money from my Social Security disability to get food stamps. They told me they will give me ten dollars in food stamps. (lol) I laughed at them to. I also has to pay 104.00 a month for my part B in medicare. I assume they want us old ones to die so they can give what we have left to the young thugs who have babies just to get food stamps and free rent, and never have to get out of the bed to know what it's like to go to work. Rant is over....have a nice one this evening. (lol)

The Queen Jester said...

First of all - love the yarn...this may be your best choice yet.

I hope 75 isn't considered the standard as I plan to live longer than that and plan to do it in as good health as possible.

The crazy pills are funny, but seeing desperately misspelled made me a bit crazy....so maybe I need some of those.

smiekeltje said...

The trend here in Western Europe is going that way too, we just live too long.
Well, if possible I want to walk around for some more years too, hoping God will look after me and Jan a bit, so I can spend those years in rather good health, mentally and physically. LOL.
Oh, and we had a headline too that should comfort us and take away the worries of all people in health care:
The minister says it could be fixes that not 20.000 people will loose their jobs there but ONLY 12.000. How wonderful.
Next year will be a very tricky year because health care will go to municipality to take care of it and lots of towns are not yet ready for that big job. They will receive some money from government, of course, but it all is very untransparant for us citizends as well as for municipality and I fear there will comes a lot of "chaos"and such because of it.
Ah well, we as voters for parliament have nothing to say about it.
Today Jan and I will do our last bit of paperwork and internet form filling, we will have to inscrive ourselves as "work-searching". Hahahaa, it is demanded so we will do so, but i wonder what they expect of us. Trying to find a job(for Jan certainly yet not the time to apply for a job, being not well yet) and considering our age, I have low expectations of the fact that any company would have us, still being a crisis here and with around 650.000 people without a job, completely crazy.
And that after a working life we had of more than 30 years.
But... we will obediant and see the results.
Your yarn is looking fab, and yes, doing some knitting or crocheting is very relaxing.
at the moment i am still finishing left in making coushing covers.
You have a nice and relaxed day my friend.
Hugs
Kyra