The Psychodynamics of the “Death Panel” Fraud
Very interesting post from Andrew Sabl asks the question of why would anyone believe something so nutty as that Barack Obama has a secret plan to create “death panels” to kill old people:
I think it has to do with the dynamics of self-interest and self-deception. Some of the most virulent opponents of health reform are the elderly, who already have government-provided health insurance. While some may be too silly to know that that’s what they have, a great many assuredly do know it, and are happy to pull up the ladder behind them. Medicare is already very successful and very generous. Under universal coverage, it’s unlikely to get much better (except for prescription drug coverage, but not all the elderly take a huge number of pills). And it could, for all one knows, get worse. To avoid that risk, better that some youngsters go without.
This reasoning, though, is brutal–too brutal to acknowledge. While we’re a pretty selfish country, “I’m all right, Jack” is not an argument people comfortably make when others’ lives are at stake. But “if this passes, they’ll euthanize me and my friends” is another kind of argument altogether. It’s false, but easy to seize on as a morally comfortable pretext for opposing a bill that threatens one’s self-interest.
That seems right. One note I would make about Medicare, though, is that while people may not believe that reform will make it better, I think the odds are very good that reform will make it better. There’s been a tendency for the current debate to construe talk of cutting out unnecessary medical services as a way to save money. But it’s important to recognize that while access to beneficial health care services is an excellent thing, undergoing unnecessary medical treatments is annoying and potentially quite dangerous. Seniors may not believe it, but making Medicare more efficient will be good for them.
80 Responses to “The Psychodynamics of the “Death Panel” Fraud”
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August 13th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
The irony, of course, is that all of this nattering from old people about how we’re going to euthanize them only makes us want to euthanize them.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
It should be legal to sue people who make up lies like these.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
The worst part is, as a young person, I see the baby boomers and seniors who have consistently voted for huge deficits (through insisting on constant tax cutting) but will demand more services than ever, and most of whom have almost no savings. The thought that I will have to pay for all of their care, plus a large share of what they should have been paying for all along, makes me dizzy. Whatever, I guess.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I agree that belief in death panels is a strategic “belief.”
But I actually think the core sentiment motivating opposition is pure hostility to government. People are worried/angry about creeping collectivism, and everything else is a symptom of that fear.
This is why MY is right to point out that the public option in this bill is really, genuinely, designed to ensure that private insurance remains the norm. If people really understood that, and believed it, a lot of the unease would dissipate.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
As a twenty-something with a bare-bones insurance plan, who has several friends and family members who cannot get coverage at all without getting a much better/different job because of pre-existing conditions, I just want to say this: I hate old people.
The next time some old coot wants to complain about kids today, I just want him or her to remember that the young may be wasting their lives on the internet or violent video games or whatever, but the elderly are the ones whose passionate selfishness is putting entire generations of American citizens in mortal danger.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
There are probably very few seniors involved. This is engineered by professionals and aided by the media.
Astroturf.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Or it could just be that a significant portion of the elderly are racist conservatives and are thus predisposed to believe the worst things imaginable about legislation sought by the liberal black President.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
The worst part is, as a young person, I see the baby boomers and seniors who have consistently voted for huge deficits (through insisting on constant tax cutting) but will demand more services than ever, and most of whom have almost no savings. The thought that I will have to pay for all of their care, plus a large share of what they should have been paying for all along, makes me dizzy. Whatever, I guess.
I think “whatever” whenever someone tries to stir up generational warfare. But your point about deficits is on the mark. As Obama has repeated over and over, if you care about debt and deficits, then you should care about Medicare and health care reform.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
By the way, this sort of thinking has been pretty characteristic of the now-55+ crowd throughout their entire history. The boomers received the full benefit of increased spending on and access to schools and other postwar gov’t programs, but as soon as that generation no longer had personal use for them, they started clamoring for lower taxes and cutting spending, leaving future generations with inferior gov’t services because they didn’t want to pay for them anymore.
(Sorry for the outburst, but the health care debate has a direct impact on the quality of life of many people around me, and the attitudes of the opposition infuriate me.)
August 13th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
# Poptarts Says:
August 13th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
The worst part is, as a young person, I see the baby boomers and seniors who have consistently voted for huge deficits (through insisting on constant tax cutting) but will demand more services than ever, and most of whom have almost no savings. The thought that I will have to pay for all of their care, plus a large share of what they should have been paying for all along, makes me dizzy. Whatever, I guess.
I think “whatever” whenever someone tries to stir up generational warfare. But your point about deficits is on the mark. As Obama has repeated over and over, if you care about debt and deficits, then you should care about Medicare and health care reform.
Oh, I’m not trying to stir up generational warfare. The whatever at the end of my post signals my resignation to higher taxes and poorer services for people of my generation. Someone has to take care of our parents, and there is no one but us. Hence, whatever.
But seeing them block any kind of efforts to change things is frustrating.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I’m glad to see we’ve infuriated you all. That was our goal. We’ll stop shouting about death panels, if you’ll stop filling the airwaves with ads for goddamned little gizmos with screens. No one cares that you have a f—-ing app for that.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Let’s not make light of what I believe to be an important component of the madness. Some seniors sincerely believe that the reform will take away, dilute or reduce their Medicare coverage. They are unwilling to allow this to happen even if it means more people will be covered. I think proponents of health care reform need to advertise the fact that they have no desire to reduce Medicare coverage; only that they intend to improve Medicare and make a similar plan available to more people. I am sure Obama is making this statement but it needs to be made more often and more effectively. Until seniors understand that Medicare is a government program and that health care reform will improve it, not hurt it, you will continue to have seemingly irrational resistance from those currently benefiting from Medicare. Maybe this task will be easier when there is actually a final bill to debate.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Ron @7,
BINGO! Bring your card to the front of the room for verification that YOU have won the prize!
My brother served in the Naval Reserve for the necessary twenty years and now has “Tri-Care For Life!” My wife’s father was a school teacher in Alaska for the necessary twenty years and now has Alaska state retirement health care in addition to his Medicare.
Both are gorging at the government trough, both listen to Michael Savage, Glen Beck, and Rush, and virulently oppose health care reform because “it’s Socialism”.
Yes, they both did public service jobs and met the requirements for their benefits, and I’m happy they have them. But like most elderly white people, they think such benefits should only be for people like them “who work for a living” (code for “are white”).
August 13th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
adam, is it okay if I point out that the first boomers won’t be on Medicare until next year? When we talk about the elderly, we’re largely talking about boomers’ parents and, well, older siblings.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
The wing nuts believe it because they do not trust liberals, government or black men & women.
Plus, the constant AM hate radio and Fox News drumbeat of falsehoods and questions of Obama’s citizenship create a sense of illegitamcy and a lack of trust.
Once again, the right has outmaneuvered the left.
AND they did it in record time and WITH a full, complete Dem majority and dominance in the govt.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Also I find it hard to believe that many people actually believe Obama wants “death panels” and culling squads, and that liberals are overreacting to the phenomenon.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
And it could, for all one knows, get worse. To avoid that risk, better that some youngsters go without.
Isn’t there a parallel argument that runs in the opposite direction? I seem to recall many on “the left” arguing that the guarantor of Social Security was its universiality. Why isn’t the same true for health care? If coverage is universal, reducing the treatments covered is going to be a complete non-starter.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Maybe what many people are objecting to are things being openly considered- “just take a pain pill,” etc. Denial of treatment isn’t the same thing as euthanasia, but I don’t know that a perfect understanding of that distinction would substantially reduce passions.
Is the reasoning of old people “brutal?” Only in the sense that all political competition for health resources is brutal. Many old people are highly dependent on MediCare. If all age groups become similarly dependent on government, then political competition will be the primary method for accessing resources. Old people are just fighting a pre-emptive war.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
And why does the opinion of seniors matter so much in this debate? Because they vote so much more consistently than younger generations, and hence politicians care and pay attention so much more to what they say and think.
I’m ready to blame the lazy, thoughtless, inattentive middle-age and below population in this country before I’m ready to blame seniors on this. If everybody plainly gave a fuck about what was happening to them and to their country, and paid attention for two seconds, this would be a moot point.
I do get sickened thinking about their hypocrisy on the issue of reform… it’s just as perverted and ridiculous as everybody is imagining here. but it’s allowed to happen for a reason. And that reason is not entirely to do with their own willful ignorance and selfishness.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
@18: with all due respect, poppycock.
The bill doesn’t make “all age groups similarly dependent on government.” Private insurance remains the norm, and the bill tries to keep that from changing. People can choose the public option only if their employer doesn’t offer private insurance — which large employers, as I understand it, will be required to do.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Before y’all go blaming seniors, remember that the biggest seniors group (AARP) is solidly behind health care reform. I havent seen polling on this, but I would expect that the actual views of seniors is much more balanced than is being represented by a VERY vocal minority.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Ron@7
Unfortunately, they do not have a liberal black President.
They have a centrist black President.
If only they knew.
August 13th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Unfortunately, they do not have a liberal black President.
They have a centrist black President.
In the US a centrist counts as a liberal.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I don’t know, Poptarts. Did you see the numbers in those Birther polls? There are a lot of people willing to believe crazy shit about Obama.
Death Panels. Volunteer groups actually being private armies. A politicians’ popularity making him like Hitler. When did Jello Biafra take over the Republican Party?
August 13th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Just a thought if President Obama had chosen to put Mrs. E. Shiver and others of her caliber on his advisors to health care team, his health bill might well be law. Instead, we find the likes of Ezekiel Emanuel and others who share his life versa money ideology. I do not care what the bill reads now, once law and controlled by government the future is questionable. The details are in the small print, and a bill so large and so complex must be understood by those that sign and those affected.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Matthew engages in the sophistry that pretends that the notion of what is “necessary” will be the same for a patient and whatever government body defines “necessary”. This is no more likely than a patient agreeing with an insurance company on the meaning of the term. While the “death panel” nonsense is just that, the reason so many Medicare recipients are in opposition to these proposals is because they have the reasonable belief that the definition of “necessary” will be more constrained for them under these proposals, for things they desire, and that they desire to have quickly, than what falls under the definition of “necessary” under the current Medicare regime.
The whole health care delivery debate revolves around who gets the power to define what is necessary, and people, especially Medicare recipients, understand this. Therefore, trying to assure such people, who are currently getting as good a deal as any large group of people on earth, that the future entails only giving up “unecessary” treatments, accomplishes nothing.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
i just posted up a piece enticing folks to share their definition of what the phrase “the america i used to know” means in whatever context they choose to try out. have a go folks, and please comment freely.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
The frustrating thing about this is that the Obama proposal was compromise to begin with; it’s not government-run healthcare, it’s not even single-payer, or a guarantor+supplement system like the French model. We STARTED with the assumption that we were bending over backwards not to undermine insurance companies or the existing model.
I think the right is again showing us it’s best to act immature and demand the moon so when you negotiate down you end up with something reasonable.
Apparently, effective politics demands bad-faith, which is antithical to good governance.
We’re totally screwed.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Also, it is intersting to see so many people in a forum of this ideological type starting to agree with me that there is a generational reckoning in our future. What? Transferring large amounts of wealth from young people without assets to old people who are likely to have much more wealth causes significant friction, likely leading to bitter conflict? Whoda’ thunk it!
August 13th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Democrats have a system I like to call the culture of death. It worships euthanasia, judges and ridicules “breeder” women for giving birth, and excuses terrorists like Bill Ayers. Life is meaningless except in service to the omnipotent State.
Given that context, there’s plenty of reason to fear the Democrat “counseling sessions.” Remember Terry Schiavo, who Democrats went to the mat for to allow someone unrelated to her to euthanize her, despite her family’s desire to love and care for her. With that in mind, if we put these death panels in, why should we expect anything less than tens of thousands of Terry Schiavos.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Will Allen really needs to triage the remains of his intellectual credibility on this thread before writing checks that he is manifestly unable to cash over here.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Shorter Will Allen: keep government death boards out of my Medicare!
August 13th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
@30: Wait — you’ve gotten a copy of the Scriptures of Rost-al-Ankhamun? Goddessdamn it! That’s supposed to be tightly controlled by a council of elders in Berkeley.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
One of the main reasons this has gotten traction is simple: The President and Congress have both stated a desire to make some cuts in Medicare in order to fill the gap in the CBO’s 10 year, $1T cost estimate.
This puts the proposed reform at war with the elderly, who – quite reasonably – believe that cuts in Medicare funding will result in worse care. Ultimately, the President picked a fight with a group that votes in very large numbers, and – for good or ill – has influence disproportionate to their numbers.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
DMonteith, your linkage to the thread in which you simply assume the passage of legislation which actually reduces carbon emissions significantly, as an example where I was wrting uncashable checks, is kinda’ funny.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Can’t read much, huh, Zephyrus?
August 13th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Except that the main organizations that look out for the rights of the elderly SUPPORT THE LEGISLATION. This is not “the elderly” acting in a cohesive block for their own self-interest. This is a segment of them that have been misled, and are allowing themselves to be misled because it plays so well into the fears that they already had.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Actually, the AARP (which often more closely resembles a for-profit marketing organization than a political lobby, in any case), put out this statement, after Obama put forth a lie….
“While the President was correct that AARP will not endorse a health care reform bill that would reduce Medicare benefits, indications that we have endorsed any of the major health care reform bills currently under consideration in Congress are inaccurate.”
August 13th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Joe from Lowell:
I don’t know, Poptarts. Did you see the numbers in those Birther polls? There are a lot of people willing to believe crazy shit about Obama.
On second thought you’re probably right. I forgot about Terry Schiavo.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
We should actually thank #30 for reminding us that — although “death panel” concerns may seem too paranoid to be meant literally — genuine religious nutcases do make up a very real chunk of the GOP , and pandering to their phobias is probably a good way to mobilize the base.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
It’s also quite likely that more and more doctors will refuse to see Medicare beneficiaries, something that can be turned around only with a certain level of global reform.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Will, you’re right. I’m partially mistaken in that they haven’t said they support the legislation. But they don’t oppose it, and that is significant.
August 13th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I sort of agree, except that this is too logical or rational a position to be projecting onto a lot of senior citizens. The real bugbear is that many (hardly all, of course or even most) older people already feel very anxious about two three things: (1) their getting older still and or dying soon. (2) the typical regard for older people in our society (its obsessions with youth, beauty, etc.) and (3) the idea that people might not think them worth the expensive care near the end of their lives. It is this sense of slight and disregard that fuels their anxiety about death panels, as if people really will wonder aloud at their worth. I’ve worked with hospitals for years. Futile End of Life care is where humongous amounts of health care dollars are wasted but who is going to make the call? Hospices in VA hospitals are gaining advocacy. but meanwhile, we have this stoking of fundamental anxieties as much as any cost-benefit analysis of self interest in Medicare’s prospects.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Oh, I’m not trying to stir up generational warfare. The whatever at the end of my post signals my resignation to higher taxes and poorer services for people of my generation. Someone has to take care of our parents, and there is no one but us. Hence, whatever.
But seeing them block any kind of efforts to change things is frustrating.
If Obama’s agenda is successful, we’ll have less regressive taxes and less taxes for most and better more efficient services. And it’s not just old folks fighting it and some old folks are working on its behalf as people have pointed out.
Generational warfare is a tactic of the right. When they tried to privatize Social Security, they’d pay young people to complain that grandma was stealing their money.
Old people who had their savings wiped out in the Great Panic of 2008? Yeah they got it cushy. Meanwhile many on Wall Street are doing fine off of the public tit.
My grandather lived through the Depression and fought in WWII. The generation in their 20s and 30s are spoiled. Hugely spoiled. 9/11 was a little wake up call, but quickly forgotten. Americans want a quiet life and a “realistic” foreign policy, i.e don’t spend our tax dollars on foreigners.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Aqua, I suspect they are maintaining neutrality until they can discern which side of the fence will be more profitable.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
In the rush of manufactured hysteria I’m surprised that the story hasn’t gotten out that Obamacare is all about bands of depraved nigras grabbing fat white folks and sticking them bound and gagged into steaming hot kettles of chicken broth while restless jelly bean chewing natives dance the watusi and raise their spears in the air.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Yes, Barack Obama is trying to give government the say over what is necessary in medicare, rather than leaving that decision with government.
Currently, congress sets the rules with non-binding advice from MEDPAC. Obama wants MEDPAC to have real power and independence, and wants it to be moved to the executive branch. The medicare patient’s doctor is not deciding what is necessary, except within a government defined scope now, or in the future.
The closest non-government doctors come to deciding what is necessary in medicare is through medicare peer review organizations. Those are generally contractors hired and paid by the government. They are a possible stage in the appeals or pre-approval processes. Even then, it is not the patient’s doctor deciding what is necessary, it is a group of doctors working as government contractors.
Government is already there between seniors and their doctors. As it is, they protect seniors from not receiving necessary treatment. They protect them from receiving unquestionably useless or harmless treatment. They don’t protect them from being used by doctors as tools for extracting money from the government.
How many seniors would like an unnecessary lumbar puncture administered the day before they die like the one given to my grandfather after he was already diagnosed with fatal kidney failure?
August 13th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Great, now because I’m lucky enough to start my career in an era of massive deficits, unemployment, “jobless recoveries”, no real wage growth, 100% tuition increases and the gutting of state services (CA native here) thanks to the Boomer generation and their elders, I’m “hugely spoiled”. Right.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Sorry I forgot climate change and peak oil, outsourcing and “free trade”. But my Iphone rulez!
August 13th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
DMonteith, your linkage to the thread in which you simply assume the passage of legislation which actually reduces carbon emissions significantly, as an example where I was wrting uncashable checks, is kinda’ funny.
The fact that I’ve posted the link shows that I’m not too worried about your interpretation being correct. But I can understand your impulse to squirt a cloud of ink and flee as fast as you can.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
dim, No, I think you need to direct your anger at the presidents and congress of past who gave you that. Not that grandfather who if he lived thru the depression and WWII who had their “youth stolen”. Just looking for someone to blame. Look harder.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Remember Terry Schiavo, who Democrats went to the mat for to allow someone unrelated to her to euthanize her, despite her family’s desire to love and care for her.
Oh, No! Please! Republicans, PLEASE don’t make Terry Schiavo the centerpiece of your future campaigns! NO NO NOT THAT!!
August 13th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Will, when are you going to stop supporting the murder of innocents in order to ensure that you don’t pay more taxes? How many children need to die of preventable causes (like the boy killed over his tooth) to satiate your fucking bloodlust?
Oh wait, if we use the body count in Iraq as a guide, you are willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of innocents on the alter of your ideological purity. And that cost money. If you get the murders for free it makes sense that you are willing to greatly expand your genocidal impulses.
Your strawman version of the arguments is pathetic you sick monster.
August 13th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
What the hell has your generation done, dim? I’m a 48 year old boomer, and as far as I can tell, people entering college these days don’t clean up after themselves, think they’re the greatest fucking thing that ever happened to anybody, think an education is nothing more than a way to make money, and avoid the middle-aged as if we were a plague.
Fuck you and the little pink pony you rode in on. What do you have to offer besides your self-indulgent, solipsistic esteem for yourself?
August 13th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
For some reason, out of all the nutty distortions and lies in #30, the notion that Terri Schiavo’s husband was “someone unrelated to her” strikes me as the most interesting one.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Isn’t this exactly how every generation sees the one after it? It’s certainly what your parents’ generation thought about yours.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I respect the hell out of that generation for what they went through. My grandparents worked and saved all their lives to be able to provide for their children to be able to attend college and better themselves. My dad (68) worked the graveyard shift at a John Deere factory in Iowa while attending college during the day so he could get a good education and provide for his family. He also worked all his life against the “I got mine, fuck you” politics of the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s that his generation (and presumably yours?) embraced.
Presidents and Congress are supposed to be responsive to the public right? I cast my first presidential vote for Al Gore. I didn’t vote for Reaganomics, Clintonomics, or Bushonomics. Boomers and the generations just before and after did. Those generations voted for lower taxes and increasing entitlements for themselves, free trade, aggressive foreign policy, etc. My generation didn’t do that. I’m not looking for someone to blame, I’m looking to deflect this point of view that my generation has it easy.
I’m not entering college, I’m finishing graduate school (the original slight was “20’s and 30’s”). I’m quite clean, don’t think I’m the greatest fucking thing that ever happened to anybody, have a liberal arts undergraduate degree, and have wonderful relationships with middle-aged people like, well, all my clients of the last 5 years. I know you don’t care, but it’s the truth, so go fuck your strawman. All I’m trying to say is that I think it’s pretty unreasonable to say that we’re so spoiled, especially economically. I don’t mind paying Social Security or Medicare at all, even though I’ll probably be fucked out of it when I get old. But what kind of world has been bequeathed to us? What kind of economy?
Again, what have we done? Just largely voted in 2004 and 2008 for an end to the insanity of Boomer politics.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
Adam, mk is correct: current Medicare recipients are not boomers. In fact, since Medicare was passed in 1965, when the eldest boomers turned 20, boomers are the oldest generation that has paid into Medicare for their entire working lives, unlike the current recipients. But, as stated, generational warfare is a cynical Republican game.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
You do realize, Anonymous, that having living wills would help cut down on the number of Terry Schiavo situations?
If only there were a component of the reform bill that would encourage and help people to make living wills…
August 13th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
You forgot to complain about the music they listen to being nothing but noise, and how they should get the hell off of your lawn. The last bit does make it sound like you’re trolling the college bars looking to score.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
So when I sum up your generation in the most unflattering light, that’s a strawman. When you sum up boomers the same way, that’s something else. Have I got that right?
August 13th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
wiley,
I can see why you’d say that, but I think there’s quite a chasm between “don’t clean up after yourselves” and “bankrupt the country”. I apologize for using such a broad brush; presumably if you’re commenting on this site you’ve been sensitive to these sorts of issues.
August 13th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Neo-cons bankrupted the country. Baby boomers are responsible for civil rights, feminism, an anti-war movement, the sexual revolution…
There’s a big chasm between virtue and not having had your chance to fuck something up, too.
August 13th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Absolutely! This is senior selfishness and whininess. Listen, let’s be honest, is there seriously anyone here who hasn’t been waiting in a very long line, and then another cashier opens and says “next on line” and the oldster at the very end of the line shuffles over there, while everyone else just stares at them? It happened to me one too many times, and the last time I tried to stop the old bat, and you know what she did? She waved her hand at me and shook her head at the cashier as if I was crazy. The other people around me were just as pissed as I was, but what can you do, tackle a senior citizen?
That’s who they are. They turn into whiny fucking infants and they don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves, and you are seeing that play out in health care big time, big time.
August 13th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Great, now because I’m lucky enough to start my career in an era of massive deficits, unemployment, “jobless recoveries”, no real wage growth, 100% tuition increases and the gutting of state services (CA native here) thanks to the Boomer generation and their elders, I’m “hugely spoiled”. Right.
Every generation has its good people and bad people which is why it’s hard to generalize. My generation, Generation X, has been pretty worthless, but I remember the early 90s was all doom and gloom talk about jobless recoveries and we ended up with the bubblicious tech boom during the rest of the decade. The younger people I know and have worked with are cool for the most part. Lots of Obamabots.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
s there seriously anyone here who hasn’t been waiting in a very long line, and then another cashier opens and says “next on line” and the oldster at the very end of the line shuffles over there, while everyone else just stares at them?
And you know what else bothers me? Shoelaces!
August 13th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Perhaps we should give the old folks credit for understanding that Medicare is in real trouble. They also understand that the easiest way for the feds to bring costs down is to expand ever so slightly the list of treatments that will not be paid for by Medicare. They may also believe that there is some cap to how much the feds will be willing to spend on healthcare, and bringing in more beneficiaries just pushes us closer to the cap.
We therefore have a zero sum game. And the elderly don’t have a choice in the matter — they can’t go get a job that pays benefits. They are helpless and hapless and thus willing to believe stupid things. And it is only going to get worse, because there is no reason to think that this round of reform will do much to bring Medicare back in line. This will be a nasty generational battle for a while.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Poptarts,
C’mon, you guys produced some pretty awesome music (and Creed on the downside).
August 13th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Just for the record, I was seven years old during the summer of love. My mother wouldn’t let me drop acid or go to Woodstock. I know that perceptions of time and ages varies with age and the person doing the perceiving, but one of the great adages of feminism—ask women questions—also works for age groups.
Though I have characterized the generation of elderly people who came after the Depression babies as bitter, evangelical, racist, Republican, hateful sorts I KNOW that that isn’t universally true, even though I have met few elderly people in the last decade who didn’t depart from that characterization.
Just as I’ve met few college “kids” my last turn in college who could shut-the-fuck-up for five minutes on the quiet floor in the library.
August 13th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
correction: …have met few elderly people in the last decade who DID depart from that characterization…
August 13th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
This is a pretty standard strategy in conservative politics for goals that are not considered acceptable to say in public. Technique was honed on race issues.
Example:
“Clean Up Inner Cities” = “Put Black People in Jail”
“Immigration Enforcement” = “Put Latino People in Jail”
“Standardized Testing” = “Keep Brown People out of White Colleges”
August 13th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Re: Democrats have a system I like to call the culture of death. It worships euthanasia, judges and ridicules “breeder” women for giving birth, and excuses terrorists like Bill Ayers. Life is meaningless except in service to the omnipotent State.
Someone hasn’t taken their medication recently– that or they are posting from a very alternate universe.
Re: Remember Terry Schiavo, who Democrats went to the mat for to allow someone unrelated to her to euthanize her,
Last I checked a spouse is considered next of kin in every state in the country, and in most if not all foreign nations.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
The Terry Schiavo case is weird. The right natters on about “her wishes”. When she was awake and capable of walking, talking, and feeding herself, she chose to eat and then make herself vomit until she destroyed her body. You could argue that she was ill, and that she didn’t really “choose”, but nevertheless her wishes about being fed were expressed by her self-torture in the name of an ideal body image. So what did the wing-nuts do? They went on a crusade and broadcast images of her in a coma, looking like a beached whale.
I don’t want “friends” like that.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Njorl, do you really want to start trading anecdotes? I know that is what passes for reason in most health care debates, but it really is quite silly. Look, if you want to pretend that millions of Medicare recipients are in error when they perceive that they are the beneficiary of less health care rationing than just about any large group of people on earth, and thus are not acting in their self interest by being resistant to changing the current arrangement, you just go right ahead.
August 13th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I would add that a significant number of elderly AND disabled people really do fear that an unholy alliance of sorts will develop between “controlling costs” and the “right to die” movement. When you are very old and / or severely disabled, even the most sunny and optimistic of us occasionally entertain the dark thought that maybe we’re more trouble to the spry young things than we’re worth. The youngsters already seem contemptuous of our quaint, embarrassing values. If they notice how much the last years of our lives are costing, maybe they won’t be so squeamish about letting us just die, already.
I am 42, so I’m projecting a bit here for effect. I am also physically disabled, and though I’m pretty independent and productive, I’ve wondered stuff like this on occasion, way down in my lizard brain.
August 13th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
There was an editorial taking up a third of a page in the newspaper of the university I was attending, not to long ago, that took way too many words to say that if you are not young and good-looking, but have self-esteem, you’re deluded.
I wouldn’t worry too much about these attitudes, Andrew, because sooner or later, life is likely to kick their insolent asses.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:04 am
Some seniors sincerely believe that the reform will take away, dilute or reduce their Medicare coverage.
Yeah, and some seniors sincerely believe that Nigerian princes want to share their fortunes with them. Some seniors sincerely need to get over their worry about the Reds, the Negroes, and what that truck is doing across the street, because somehow it’s all related… And some seniors sincerely need to understand that this kind of bullshit is the reason why we don’t call.
August 14th, 2009 at 1:59 am
That’s funny.
August 14th, 2009 at 5:48 am
I’m 68. I voted for Obama. I’m for health-care reform.
I think everyone should be offered a deal like Medicare — and be allowed to stay with their own policy if they think it’s better.
I’m on Medicare with a supplemental policy. If Medicare refuses to pay for something (or a high enough percentage of it) my supplemental kicks in. Medicare doesn’t say what medical services I can have; it says what it will pay for.
If you don’t have the money for a supplemental policy, then you’ll be like you are now on your own health insurance policy, constricted by what the payer will pay. Not constricted to what you can buy.
August 14th, 2009 at 6:35 am
When my wife was in and out of hospitals for renal failure, I could not believe the number of chest X-rays she had to undergo, all because of a lack of Medicare computerized record-keeping. How good are nearly continuous X-rays for you?