Okay…Where
do you start with this shit? The guy how wrote the Obamacare law says we “humans”
have no right to expect healthcare beyond the age of 75. Nice guy right? Tell
your parents or grandparents that it has been nice knowing ‘em ‘cause Obamacare
will be happy to have them die! Don’t they make bad movies about this stuff?
Who
wants to live forever? Doctor and former Obama health adviser says elderly are
'feeble, ineffectual and pathetic' and he hopes he dies when he's 75
·
Physician Ezekiel
Emanuel is a former Obama health policy adviser
·
Rejects the American
'obsession with an endlessly extended life'
·
Writes in essay: 'For
many reasons, 75 is a pretty good age to aim to stop'
·
Older brother to
Obama's first chief of staff, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
By Jill Reilly for MailOnline
·
|
A former Obama health policy adviser has insisted he wants to be dead by his 75th birthday as the elderly are 'feeble, ineffectual and pathetic.'
A former Obama health policy adviser has insisted he wants to be dead by his 75th birthday as the elderly are 'feeble, ineffectual and pathetic.'
Physicist Ezekiel Emanuel, architect of
Obamacare and brother of former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, claims that
longevity often comes at the expense of quality of life and the desire to live
longer is 'misguided.'
Writing in the October issue of The Atlantic, he says: 'There is a simple truth that many of us seem to
resist: living too long is also a loss.
'It renders many of us, if not
disabled, then faltering and declining, a state that may not be worse than
death but is nonetheless deprived.
'It robs us of our creativity and
ability to contribute to work, society, the world.
'It transforms how people experience
us, relate to us, and, most important, remember us.
'We are no longer remembered as vibrant
and engaged but as feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic.
The father-of-three acknowledges that
his desire to die in his seventies does not sit well with his family,
especially his daughters, but insists he will not change his mind as his years
advance.
He says that if parents live to their
nineties, their children must give up their retirement time to look after them
and the only time they are free is when their parents die - and they are then
old themselves.
Emanuel insists in the essay that he is not arguing for euthanasia or assisted suicide at a certain age. He says that if he was diagnosed with cancer now he would probably have it treated, but when he turns 65 he will have his last colonoscopy and have no screening for prostate cancer at any age.
Emanuel insists that once he turns 75 he will refuse all medical treatment and says he 'die when whatever comes first takes me.'
In the essay, which is published on the
website with photos of his family, Emanuel says he will hold a memorial before
his death to celebrate his life, but if his survivors want to have one when he
has passed away it is not his 'business.'
Emanuel, chair of the Department of
Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, does
acknowledge that sometimes age is not a barrier to creativity.
He cites the case of a prominent health
economist who recently celebrated his 90th birthday and continues to be
'brilliant', but insists that the man is simply 'an outlier—a very rare
individual.'
Emanuel blasts the American obsession
with 'exercising, doing mental puzzles, consuming various juice and protein
concoctions, sticking to strict diets, and popping vitamins' and says he thinks
the mindset is both 'misguided and potentially destructive.'
Emanuel, told ABC's Dr. Richard Besser
on This Week: 'I look at the data on disability, I look at the data on
Alzheimer's disease, I look at the data on loss of creativity.
'And 75 seems to be the right moment where the chance of disability, physical disability is low, you're still not in the high Alzheimer's risk of 30 percent or 50 percent and creativity has sort of come to an end. Emanuel, the director of the Clinical Bioethics Department at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and head of the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, helped develop President Obama's health care reform law.
Emanuel's youngest brother is the
president's first chief of staff, current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Their other brother is Hollywood agent
Ari Emanuel whose clients have included Rhianna, Justin Timberlake, Ben Affleck
and Matt Damon. The three brothers were raised in Chicago by their
father Israeli-born pediatrician Benjamin and mother Marsha, a nurse
who was a descendant of Russian immigrants. They also have an adopted
sister with cerebral palsy who shuns the limelight.
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