Thursday, July 02, 2009

'Lifeboat Ethics': Why Seniors should fear Obamacare

You think that scenario wouldn't be a valid concern for Seniors under Obamacare, when private insurance is inevitably forced out of existence?

You probably have a firm belief in the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus, too.

This might change your mind about the possible outcomes under Obamacare:

"But not everyone agrees with my view that Lifeboat Ethics cases are best used to discuss exceptions to general moral guidelines rather than to set the guidelines themselves. And since Obama has insisted on many occasions in the past, especially when running in the primaries against Hillary Clinton, that it is his health care plan we are considering when we discuss the plan soon to be presented to Congress, it is I think reasonable to now ask relative to some important situations, whether Obama would let you into his lifeboat.

Situation One: Are you over 70 years old? If so, then you have real reason to worry about whether he will let you in. Developers of his plan understand that the bulk of the nation’s health care resources are used by senior citizens and they are looking for ways to ration care to the elderly.

In our last article we looked at an argument they favor which would ration care to the elderly and terminally ill based on a Cost-Benefit Analysis. Another plan now being seriously considered here and in Great Britain is to set an arbitrary age cap on receiving health benefits. This hearkens back to an idea originally espoused as far back as 1987 by Daniel Callahan, that humans have an average expected life span (figures of 70 yrs. to 85 yrs. have been mentioned in discussions of this point) and persons who have lived up to this age have no right to expect that we extend them medical care beyond it.

In other words, we are not here talking about a situation where, for example, if two patients, a 75 year old and a 25 year old were competing for the same donated liver, then the relative age of the patients would be one factor health care workers could take into account when making the decision as to who gets the organ. This proposed policy would instead use age alone as the sole criterion for denial of care. And it would not be health care workers but government who would exclude the 75 year old by setting a standard which would deny him/her from receiving health benefits on the basis of age alone!"

On the other hand, your mind might be so numbed from all the babble, dribble, drool, and spew used to implant the Dem/Lefty/"Progressive" agenda indoctrination through government schools and the Tank Media all these years, you may not have an operative mind left to change.

And don't even think about mumbling something about "scare tactics", particularly regarding anything in reference to a disastrous Obamanation policy.

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