Obama's Health Advisor Dr. Ezekial Emanuel: Should American's Be Concerned?

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

This guy is a big player in the formation of our new health care system that is being proposed and I've been hearing all sorts of scary rumors about him for a while now. Just recently an article was posted referring to some stuff he said in the Journal Of American Medicine. I would pull his JAMA article and post it but you have to pay 15 bucks to get into the site and i don't feel like doing it. However, I don't have to as the Wall Street Journal Did it For me.


This guy's idea in theory makes total sense. However it would not only be unethical but immoral to put his ideas into practice. His idea is called the "Total Life System"

"Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving quality of care are merely 'lipstick' cost control, more for show and public relations than for true change." -Emanuel

"However, other things are rarely equal—whether to save one 20-year-old, who might live another 60 years, if saved, or three 70-year-olds, who could only live for another 10 years each—is unclear." In fact, Dr. Emanuel makes a clear choice: "When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged roughly 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance, whereas the youngest and oldest people get changes that are attenuated (see chart below)

That language, while making sense intellectually, sounds totally immoral to me.

Betsy McCaughey: Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel Wants Health-Care Rationing - WSJ.com

 

[Ravi]

This information is from an ethical paper on different ways that DOCTORs decide who receives limited medical resources.

How would you decide?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

We posted his ideas in "Lancet" in other threads and he writes as if he was trying to gain favor with the German leader in the late 1930's. The core of "Complete Lives System" is absolutely terrifying and straight from all the Eugenic thinking that Hitler so dearly loved and is NeoNazi thinking pure and simple

Here are some quotes from Emanuel's Lancet article. You tell me if he'd be perfectly comfortable working alongside Josef Mengele:

"Some small benefits, such as a few weeks of life, might also be intrinsically insignificant when compared with large benefits"

"When implemented, the complete lives system produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between 15 and 40 years get the most substantial chance whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated"

Attenuated chances = death sentence

"Treating 65-years-olds differently because of stereotypes or falsehood would be ageist; treating them differently because they have already had more live-years is not"

This does not even make any fucking sense!

"Ultimately, the complete lives system does not create 'classes of Untermenschen whose lives and well being are deemed not worth spending money on' but rather empowers us to decide fairly whom to save when genuine scarcity makes saving everyone impossible"

Remember, this is from someone saying that denying care to a 65 year old is OK not because of ageism, but because they've lived longer

Democrats Uber Alles!

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

This information is from an ethical paper on different ways that DOCTORs decide who receives limited medical resources.

How would you decide?

Like I said the ideas he put forth make sense from a purely intellectual standpoint, but in practice seem totally unethical to me.

I would like to think if I was in the position that I would decide these things on a case-by-case basis instead of just going by a guideline set in relation to age only.


It just concerns me that this guy is advising the President and that the Government may try to get involved in these types of decisions, I dont trust the gubmt. .