Ted Kennedy, the Democratic Party patriarch suffering from a brain tumor, would be allowed to die under a universal health care scheme because his health care services would be "rationed" to a younger person, says Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA).
As the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley is a major player in Congressional negotiations on health care. He told Iowa radio station KCJJ that Kennedy's advanced age -- the Massachusetts senator is 77 -- means that under a universal health care system, the senator would be denied treatment for his brain tumor.
Grassley stated:
I’ve been told that the brain tumor that Sen. Kennedy has — because he’s 77 years old — would not be treated the way it’s treated in the United States. In other words, he would not get the care he gets here because of his age. In other words, they’d say ‘well he doesn’t have long to live even if he lived another four to five years.’ They’d say ‘well, we gotta spend money on people who can contribute more to economy.’ It’s a little like people saying when somebody gets to be 85 their life is worth less than when they were 35 and you pull the tubes on them.
Added Grassley: "When you run into more complicated things, in particular with older people, you find a great deal of rationing in other countries."
(Audio clip follows below.)
RAW STORY wonders: Who exactly "told" Grassley that this is the case? To the best of our knowledge, no country in the world that offers universal health care has a policy of denying care to the elderly because their lives are "worth less" -- or for any other reason.
In fact, such a system is patently counter-intuitive: In single-payer, universal health systems, health provision is in the purview of politicians. No legislator would risk political suicide by removing health care from seniors, who vote in greater numbers, in most democracies, than young people.
Grassley's comments have already raised eyebrows among bloggers.
"The larger problem Grassley ignores is cost," writes Nate Carlile at ThinkProgress. "For Kennedy, access to health care is not an issue. Among most Americans, however, staggering health costs prevent more than half of US patients from gaining access to medical care. Last year, 38 percent of US patients did not receive recommended treatment compared to 11 percent in Canada and 6 percent in the U.K. And even among Americans with insurance, 43 percent of adults with chronic conditions nevertheless had access problems because of cost."
Jason Hancock at the Iowa Independent notes: "None of the mainstream health care reform proposals being batted around Congress right now would entail rationing health care services based on a patient’s ability to 'contribute more to the economy,' as Grassley claimed."
Nor would such an idea ever pass muster in a democracy with universal health care. However, given the limited nature of the debate surrounding health care in the United States, it seems likely that unfounded arguments like Grassley's will continue to flourish.
-- Daniel Tencer