What people are saying - Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Rahm's brother)
The things that slip out of people's mouths at times...
From
Maggie's Farm (via
Gateway Pundit):
Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously?
Via Gateway, re WH medical care advisor Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Rahm's brother)Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).
Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.
That's why they want Docs to be government employees instead of your privately-hired professional.
A bit more from
John Goodman:
If health care is to be rationed, what's the right way to do it? Zeke Emanuel (who is also the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel) wrote an entire article on this subject in the Lancet on January 31, 2009. Emanuel advocated allocating health resources in order to maximize collective life years. Suppose a 25-year-old and a 65-year-old have a life threatening disease. Since the 25-year-old has many more potential years of life ahead of him, he should receive preferential treatment, says Emanuel. He justifies denying care to elderly patients in the following way:The complete lives system discriminates against older people�. Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.
There's more. In a different article written more than 10 years ago for the Hastings Center Report, Emanuel said health services should not be guaranteed to "individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens." He continues, "An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."
And we are sitting on our butts and letting them do this to us?
I am 58 years old and relatively healthy. I love life. If I had an aggressive cancer, I sure as hell would want every available option for treating it. My Mom feared Doctors and died from a preventable disease but she went at 85. My Dad is 93 and frail but physically fine. A touch of dementia but it hasn't affected his long-term memories so he is having a great time living in his own little world. He lives by himself with a caretaker coming in for a few hours each day. I plan to be right up there in thirty years...
Posted by DaveH at July 26, 2009 3:33 PM