Tuesday, September 05, 2006

7 Comments:

Hard to picture. Reminds me of the chinese tale of the king who killed all the old people in his kingdom only to be saved when his kingdom was invaded by one old woman whose grandson saved her by hiding her. The moral of the story for me has always been, wisdom comes with age. I don't approve of dumping old people in rest homes or cutting them off from society. Age has a lot to offer us all.

By  Anonymous, at 10:37 PM  

I look forward to getting older. I'm not afraid of it and I'll go when I go. Anything else is homicide.

By  Nick, at 8:16 AM  

To a lesser degree, that is why I am suspicious of long-term care insurance, and why it really isn't selling. It creates a moral hazard, IMHO. I took a long-term care class at the same time as a macroeconomics class in health care. The difference in viewpoint was amusing, to say the least. The economist recognized that LTC insurance basically preserves inheritance. Older folks have this one figured out. They don't want to be shuttled off to the "long-term care facility," either, and they're not going to provide the incentive to do it. Not one chapter of the LTC textbook was devoted to care by relatives at home.

By  Anonymous, at 8:22 AM  

This is sad on so many different levels. The most striking of these points is this person does not want to be inconvenienced. They do not want to be inconvenienced by children. They do not want to be inconvenienced by aging parents. They do not want to be inconvenienced by end of life struggles.

They do want the ultimate control of life and death over others dressed up in social conscience and economic ultraism. Add a dash of progressive thinking, a little condemnation of the church, and this is all very easy to sell to the masses.

As a broadcaster this person has a forum not available to others and sadly their ideas will carry weight with a certain segment of the population. It is hard to argue with a person who has access everyday to the media, even when their ideas do not represent the majority.

Steve Lucas

By  Anonymous, at 8:47 AM  

Trapped? What other words come to mind? Utterly self-centered, selfish, it's all about me, me, me.

My wife and I cared for my elderly mom in our home. It was sad watching her decline and become so dependent, and it cost a bundle for care-givers and nurses, but we can look anyone in the eye and say we did the absolute best we could for an aged parent.

We are now paying most of the cost for my mom-in-law, a wonderful woman, in a very high-class assisted living home. Worth every penny.

It's just what you do if you want to be a decent human being.

By  Anonymous, at 10:25 AM  

Sadly, it's what we should expect from a morally bankrupt society that places more value on an iPod than it does on human life. Thanks for shining a spotlight on this.

By  Aggravated DocSurg, at 3:59 PM  

Ok, I'm a 20 something in grad school. I reading this made me realize I'm on the other end of the spectrum. Old people worry about how they're lives might be ended. I worry about how to support this aging population. My grandparents are fast spending their way through several million dollars worth of vacation homes, trips, and other goodies and plan on having their money run out when they turn 95. They expect the family to support them. How? And no, they're not giving me money unless you count $20 a year for Christmas and I give them probably double that back.

By  Anonymous, at 7:49 PM  

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