The elderly should be very afraid

I don't normally encourage fear in people, but there is absolutely nothing good in the Democrat healthcare reform proposals for the elderly. Medicare, itself already unsustainable, is going to be slashed to help pay for this much larger, unsustainable system. That means a cut in benefits.

From Dick Morris and Eileen McGann:

Obama’s health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered.

It is so ironic that the elderly - who were so vigilant when Bush proposed to change Social Security - are so relaxed about the Obama health care proposals. Bush’s Social Security plan, which did not cut their benefits at all, aroused the strongest opposition among the elderly. But Obama’s plan, which will totally gut Medicare and replace it with government-managed care and rationing, has elicited little more than a yawn from most senior citizens.

When medical treatments (surgeries, drugs, therapies) are rationed, as will be necessary, who will be seen as more of a drain on the system than the elderly? Who will be judged less worthy of investments of resources than the elderly? We in the US will have our NICE board of "ethicists, doctors, and citizens" who will measure the value of human beings according to their "quality adjusted life year."

And (though I repeat myself), this, via Betsy McCaughey, is extremely ominous:

"One troubling provision of the House bill compels seniors to submit to a counseling session every five years (and more often if they become sick or go into a nursing home) about alternatives for end-of-life care (House bill, p. 425-430). The sessions cover highly sensitive matters such as whether to receive antibiotics and 'the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration.'

This mandate invites abuse, and seniors could easily be pushed to refuse care. Do we really want government involved in such deeply personal issues?"

From Hot Air, Obama's words are not comforting: Let them eat painkillers.

From Doug Ross:

In other words, faceless bureaucrats in Washington -- not your family -- will decide whether your grandparents live or die.

And the AARP, in running ads for ObamaCare, has betrayed its members big time. Dick Morris again:

But the interest groups that usually speak up for the elderly, particularly AARP, are in Obama’s pocket, hoping to profit from his program by becoming one of its vendors. Just as they backed Bush’s prescription drug plan because they anticipating profiting from it, so they are now helping Obama gut the medical care of their constituents.

*Updated to link to the Troglopundit. Going gently into that good night doesn't run in the troglo family.

Related: Gibbs dismisses concerns of elderly

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