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Obamacare Architect Thinks We Should Die by 75
Ezekiel Emanuel, former White House Special Adviser on Obamacare and current Director of Clinical Bioethics at NIH, has decided the optimal age for death: Seventy-five.
Doubtless, death is a loss. It deprives us of experiences and milestones, of time spent with our spouse and children. In short, it deprives us of all the things we value.
But here 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.
Emanuel, brother to Chicago mayor Rahm and Hollywood super-agent Ari, first gained notoriety as a key target of Sarah Palin. Along with other conservatives, Palin accused Ezekiel of advocating death panels, a charge he bitterly denied, even after the codification of IPAB.
Now that Obamacare is the law of the land, he isn’t as shy about sharing his controversial thoughts on aging Americans. He views geriatric medicine as a way to give “terminally ill people a good, compassionate death,” rather than a way to prolong their lives. “Americans may live longer than their parents, but they are likely to be more incapacitated,” Emanuel says. “Does that sound very desirable? Not to me.”
Stephen Hawking is quite incapacitated, as are many other productive people under 75. Should they too thirst for death, or is attaining that arbitrary age a requirement for self-destruction? As a prominent bioethicist, Emanuel must understand the repercussions of his ideas better than most.
The musings get even creepier with Emanuel’s examples of family members who have outlasted their desirability:
My father illustrates the situation well. About a decade ago, just shy of his 77th birthday, he began having pain in his abdomen. Like every good doctor, he kept denying that it was anything important. But after three weeks with no improvement, he was persuaded to see his physician. He had in fact had a heart attack, which led to a cardiac catheterization and ultimately a bypass. Since then, he has not been the same. Once the prototype of a hyperactive Emanuel, suddenly his walking, his talking, his humor got slower. Today he can swim, read the newspaper, needle his kids on the phone, and still live with my mother in their own house. But everything seems sluggish. Although he didn’t die from the heart attack, no one would say he is living a vibrant life. When he discussed it with me, my father said, “I have slowed down tremendously. That is a fact. I no longer make rounds at the hospital or teach.” Despite this, he also said he was happy.
I dearly hope that the elder Emanuel doesn’t read this article.
[L]iving as long as possible has drawbacks we often won’t admit to ourselves. I will leave aside the very real and oppressive financial and caregiving burdens that many, if not most, adults in the so-called sandwich generation are now experiencing, caught between the care of children and parents. Our living too long places real emotional weights on our progeny…
[P]arents also cast a big shadow for most children. Whether estranged, disengaged, or deeply loving, they set expectations, render judgments, impose their opinions, interfere, and are generally a looming presence for even adult children… And while children can never fully escape this weight even after a parent dies, there is much less pressure to conform to parental expectations and demands after they are gone.
I dearly hope that no one in the Emanuel family reads this article, though it would have been helpful to have this information prior to the Obamacare vote. At least he chose to “leave aside the very real and oppressive financial and caregiving burdens” or that might have induced guilt in those cruel, selfish octogenarians.
Emanuel doesn’t recommend euthanasia. But despite his protestations, the article tacitly argues for Die-If-You-Know-What’s-Best-For-You. After 75, he has determined that you are a burden to yourself, to your loved ones and to society at large. A 76-year-old obviously isn’t in a position to contribute anything useful. Emanuel isn’t ordering you to step on that the outbound ice floe, but when Obamacare 2.0 comes along, who knows?
I visited my 100-year-old grandmother this summer. Though Mr. Emanuel would look down upon her as “feeble, ineffectual, even pathetic,” I look up to her. Her vision is blurred, her hearing weak and her mind tired. But with a firm grasp of my hand and a tender kiss on my cheek she showed that she can contribute something far more important than an article in The Atlantic: Love.
Published in General
I’ll take God’s three score and twenty (maybe more), but I’ll be DAMNED if I’m going to let this jerk and his death panel tell me 75 is all I’ve got . . .
I am attempting to find some interpretation of these words which do not paint Mr. Emanuel as a rather poor son and singularly ungrateful child. So far no luck.
Emmanuel’s Run.
I now have an idea for a Halloween costume. On the scary/creepy scale, an Ezekiel Emanuel mask is an 11.
Key phrase: “not to me”. This is a personal matter. Someone may decide 75 is enough. And someone else would go as long as possible. This was a pointless article by Emmanuel. But it does open the door to something worse.
Between this, MMGW alarmism, and Michele Obama’s “healthy” but flavorless food agenda, I think the left’s vision of the future more closely represents Soylent Green.
He looks like he’s getting pretty close to that, himself.
I hope Zeke practices what he preaches.
May your grandmother have another 100. I lost my last one a couple of years ago at 99 1/2. It was a shame. She was very much looking forward to the century mark.
And the Democrats say Republicans haven’t contributed anything to the healthcare debate. If Alan Grayson is to be believed, Republicans came up with what seems now to be the core of the American healthcare regime: “Die Quickly!”
I think you’re mistaken. It is actually Republicans that favor pushing grandma’s wheelchair off the cliff. I’ve seen the video.
The GOP braintrust has 6+ weeks to use this to maximum electoral advantage, to relentlessly and endlessly pound this immoral view home to every voter who ever had a parent, as emblematic of Obamacare and its not-too-distant-future reach.
But will they?
Where is the Image on this EJ?
I think this guy should off himself at 75, just to be consistent.
Many environmentalists adopt restrictions of their own lifestyles, and then seek to impose them on society. They often go to greater lengths in, for example, reuse, recycling, etc. than most people will tolerate. They see this as virtuous, and as doing their best to make up for the selfishness of others who will not be virtuous.
Ezekiel Emmanuel should follow this example, and lead the way for us as soon as possible. Why wait until 75?
75 is far too long for me. Can I sell some years to someone who wants them?
I’m begging the editors. Please, please get that evil man’s visage off the carousel. Otherwise, I may have to avoid Ricochet until it cycles off.
We are witnessing the Great Unmasking — and next to no Americans are paying any attention.
Is it like the healthcare version of the military draft?
Once you turn 75, your name gets put in the lottery.
Tonight’s winner is 24601…
You have to admit, death makes for a nice solution. Wraps up all the loose ends as it were. Death for the very young and death for the very old. Death for the fat, the slow, or the crippled…what social ill or human suffering can death not alleviate for us?
While reading Emanuel’s piece earlier today I kept thinking that this was the most spine-chilling propaganda I’d ever been subjected to. He should have published this on Halloween for maximum oomph. I dearly hope everyone in his family reads it, and I hope they do it aloud to him on the eve of his 75th birthday.
He won’t, for the same reason Al Gore flies around in a private plane.
I’m sure the govt can organize the govt-run health-care system so as to obtain this outcome.
Jon,
I just don’t see what is that you are all complaining about. Just because the chief architect of Obamacare appears to be a sociopathic schizophrenic shouldn’t make us lose sleep. After all if you just don’t read the Bill, go outside, or talk to anyone every again everything will be all right.
And now a little interlude with Dr. Zeke Strangelove.
I hope Mr. Hendrix enjoyed that.
Regards,
Jim
When he turns 75 we can send the Sandmen after him.
Run, runner!
Jon, I am grateful every day for my parents and the medical practitioners who fought to bring me into the world, my siblings and extended family as well, for the freedom to succeed – and fail; for the opportunities to learn, work, worship, give and receive. Sorry, Zeke, as Mrs. Clinton once said: “I ain’t no ways tired.”
How blatantly self-absorbed and self-referential! How lacking in gratitude! This makes me want to (as my Mother taught me to say) upchuck…
Why am I not surprised at all? I’m just surprised that he would think it ok to say this publicly.
This is plainly sick. And frightening: Director of Bioethics at NIH.
I will happily deliver his cup of hemlock on his 75th birthday. And watch while he drinks it.
He won’t drink it:
Though some of his other ideas are kooky, I have to at least give him credit for this.
I actually agree with him on another point as well:
While I’d rather live to 100 all else being equal, if it means giving up bacon cheeseburgers and chocolate shakes, then thanks but no thanks.
Heh! Thanks Jim. Uh, I never knew that the good Dr’s first name was Zeke. Are you sure about that?