RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events A right to Health Care

Martin Amis has never fought shy of an argument, whether it be with the critic Terry Eagleton (over Islamist extremism), his pal Christopher Hitchens (over Stalin) or fellow novelist Julian Barnes (over Amis leaving his agent – Barnes's wife).

But none of those opponents were as tough as his new target promises to be. Now 60, Amis has picked a fight with the grey power of Britain's ageing population, calling for euthanasia "booths" on street corners where they can terminate their lives with "a martini and a medal".

The author of Time's Arrow and London Fields said in an interview at the weekend that he believes Britain faces a "civil war" between young and old, as a "silver ­tsunami" of increasingly ageing people puts pressure on society.

"They'll be a population of demented very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops," he said. "I can imagine a sort of civil war between the old and the young in 10 or 15 years' time.

"There should be a booth on every ­corner where you could get a martini and a medal," he added.

His comments were immediately condemned as "glib" and "offensive" by anti-euthanasia groups and those caring for the elderly and infirm. Supporters of assisted suicide, meanwhile, insisted that a dignified and compassionate end should be on offer to those who are dying.

Alistair Thompson, from the Care Not Killing Alliance, said Amis's views were "very worrying". "We are extremely disappointed that people are advocating death booths for the elderly and the disabled. How on earth can we pretend to be a civilised society if people are giving the oxygen of publicity to such proposals?

"What are these death booths? Are they going to be a kind of superloo where you put in a couple of quid and get a lethal cocktail?"

The Alzheimer's Society said there were 700,000 people with dementia in the UK and the figures were set to rise. "It is understandable that people in the early stages of dementia may reflect on the subject of euthanasia," said Andrew Ketteringham, of the Alzheimer's Society. "However, glib and offensive comments about 'euthanasia booths' and 'demented old people' only serve to alienate those dealing with this devastating condition and sidestep the hugely important question of how we can best support those affected to live well and maintain their dignity."

Amis, whose forthcoming novel, The Pregnant Widow, is due to be released shortly, stood by his comments, made in an interview in the Sunday Times.

He told the Guardian: "What we need to recognise is that certain lives fall into the negative, where pain hugely dwarfs those remaining pleasures that you may be left with. Geriatric science has been allowed to take over and, really, decency roars for some sort of correction." He said his comments were meant to be "satirical", rather than "glib".

His stance on euthanasia had hardened since the deaths of his stepfather, Lord Kilmarnock, the former SDP peer and writer, in March aged 81, and his friend Dame Iris Murdoch, the novelist, in 1999, aged 79, two years after her husband revealed that she was suffering from Alzheimer's.

"I increasingly feel that religion is so deep in our constitution and in our minds and that is something we should just peel off," he said. "Of course euthanasia is open to abuse, in that the typical grey death will be that of an old relative whose family gets rid of for one reason or another, and they'll say 'he asked me to do it', or 'he wanted to die', Amis said. "That's what we will have to look out for. Nonetheless, it is something we have to make some progress on."

Answering critics who said his comments were "offensive' to older people, Amis, a grandfather, said: "Well, I'm not a million miles away from that myself."

He added: "I had a friend who was desperately ill and she wanted to go to Switzerland, to Dignitas, but she was defeated by bureaucracy at this end. And, I think it is existentially more terrifying to feel that life is something you can't get out of.

"Frankly, I can't think of any reason for prolonging life once the mind goes. You are without dignity then."

In his interview, Amis said his step­father had died "very horribly". "He always thought he was going to get better. But he didn't get better and I think the denial of death is a great curse."

He said Iris Murdoch, whom he had known for a very long time , was "a friend, I loved her. She was wonderful. I remember talking to her just as it started happening, and she said, 'I've entered a dark place'. That famous quote. Awareness of loss is gone, the track is gone. You don't know the day you've spent watching Teletubbies; it just vanished."

The pro-euthanasia pressure group Dignity in Dying said: "Like all too many people in the UK, Martin Amis has witnessed the bad death of a loved one." But, it added: "Dignity in Dying's campaign for a change in the law is not about the introduction of 'euthanasia booths', nor is it in anticipation of a 'silver tsunami'. Our campaign is about allowing dying adults who have mental capacity a compassionate choice to end their suffering, subject to strict legal safeguards."

Poll: Just 30 Percent Want Congress to Pass Healthcare Bill Similar to Current One

There is no suitable place, and the concept of devoting as much as $1 billion over five years, as the NYPD estimates, to protect against enemy attacks is far beyond the pale of acceptability.

Whether the White House is acting in good faith or simply to placate local Democrats remains to be seen. What's clear is that the administration acted hastily after perversely standing ready to saddle taxpayers with a $200 million-a-year tab while refusing to adequately fund health care for the rescue and recovery workers sickened by the toxic aftermath of the attack.

On this matter, too, the White House faced an uproar and scrambled to commit to doubling the piecemeal contribution, for only next year, from $75 million to $150 million. Which isn't good enough at all from a President who had vowed while campaigning to help the Forgotten Victims of 9/11.

If Obama believes the feds have the resources to stage a trial wherever, then the feds also have the wherewithal to pick up the health care bill.

Obama needs only to switch Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to a military tribunal and then to direct the savings into programs for the 9/11 sick.

The Obama administration stunned New York's delegation Thursday, dropping the bombshell news that it does not support funding the 9/11 health bill.

The state's two senators and 14 House members met with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius just hours before President Obama implored in his speech to the nation for Congress to come together and deliver a government that delivers on its promises to the American people.

So the legislators were floored to learn the Democratic administration does not want to deliver for the tens of thousands of people who sacrificed after 9/11, and the untold numbers now getting sick.

"I was stunned — and very disappointed," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who like most of the other legislators had expected more of a discussion on how to more forward.

"To say the least, I was flabbergasted," said Staten Island Rep. Mike McMahon.

The 9/11 bill would spend about $11 billion over 30 years to care for the growing numbers of people getting sick from their service at Ground Zero, and to compensate families for their losses.

The legislators were shocked the idea was falling lower on the administration priority list than other parts of the war on terror and financial bailouts.

"She made it clear that the administration does not support any kind of funding mechanism that goes into the bill," said Bronx Rep. Eliot Engel. "I think it's fiscal restraint… but you know what? They find money for everything else, they need to find money for this," Engel said.

"We were attacked because we're a symbol of our country." McMahon was furious that caring for the heroes of Sept. 11 would take a back seat to anything but military funding.

"I thought there was a complete lack of understanding of the issue by the secretary and quite frankly, I did not expect that lack of compassion and failure to understand the urgency of the issue."

Victims and advocates of 9/11 families are similarly stunned. Lorie Van Auken, whose husband died on 9/11 and who supports the White House in its push to try the terrorists in New York, was crestfallen at the news.

"I thought that these people would be taken care of. I would have expected better from this administration," Van Auken said, adding that she thought it sends the wrong message to all of America's would-be heroes that the government won't be there for them.

"These people put their lives on the line to help people who live here and who were in danger, and now the government doesn't want to support them," Van Auken said.

"What happens in the future when something else happens? Are people going to say, ‘No, sorry, I'm not going to help?'"

The legislators did hold out hope, though. McMahon and others said they would appeal to the President to consider adding 9/11 money to the list of mandatory items, rather than discretionary measures subject to the White House planned budget freeze.

Health and Human Servicices officials and the White House did not have an immediate response.

Bart Stupak is learning a valuable lesson in dealing with Barack Obama.

The visuals all around on this look bad — especially with the Winter Olympics coming up.

Congress funds a $1 million scholarship fund at Northern Michigan University for aspiring Olympic athletes. Robert Costa notesthe scholarship was renamed in 1998 for Bart Stupak’s son who had committed suicide.

Stupak, you will remember, insisted that Obamacare not fund abortion, even against the wishes of Barack Obama.

On Monday morning, when Obama unveiled his budget he had killed the B. J. Stupak scholarship for aspiring Olympians. The Olympics begin in ten days.

Classy.

Each individual state should have it's say. I vote and want my reps in position to regulate these companies.

Ah more deregulation. No thank you, I prefer more control.

Each individual state should have it's say. I vote and want my reps in position to regulate these companies.

If you want to do that, I'm not wasting my time.

.... i control things here...

LOVELAND - Cincinnati's major businesses should band together to create a health care cooperative of sorts that could lower costs, improve service and possibly be a national model for health reform, General Electric's top executive told area business leaders Friday.

Saying "government can't fix the problem, business has to," GE's Jeffrey Immelt outlined a possible plan that could include combined insurance coverage shared among area companies. The plan would include a wellness treatment and education campaign and a regional health care information exchange between hospitals, doctors and insurance companies. Finally there would be an effort to apply business practices to local hospitals to help improve efficiency and lower costs.

"If this goes on another 10 years, the only employees in Cincinnati will either be working for the hospitals, or lawyers suing the hospitals, or lawyers defending the hospitals," said Immelt, the GE chairman and chief executive officer who unveiled his idea during a speech to the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber's CEO Roundtable group. "What we need to do is take the five biggest (diseases) in this city and we ought to converge all of our benefit plans to have the same standard of care.

"And we need to buy together ... we ought to converge plans to provide the greatest coverage that we can."

The idea hearkens back to a previous local initiative involving GE as well as three other major employers during the early 1990s, when the four companies joined forces to study hospitals in a bid to lower costs.

It also comes just a day after members of Congress met publicly with President Barack Obama to discuss the possibility of salvaging a health care reform plan.

Immelt said he wants a local program to become a prototype to be exported to other GE cities nationally. His proposal is in stark contrast with the current national plan being debated in Congress, even though Immelt serves on President Obama's economic advisory council and recently spent the night at the White House.

"My health care costs are growing between 9-12 percent every year ... and I don't want to one day have to say I can't hire in the U.S. because of high health care costs and not have done anything about it," Immelt said.

Currently, Cincinnati area residents pay an average of $2,211 a year in health care premiums, according to a survey by Hewitt Associates. Local health costs are up $411 from last year and $600 more than the national average.
Making the test case

A native of Finneytown, Immelt said in an interview that he wanted the trial to be made in Cincinnati because the city has the highest concentration of GE employees and retirees of any in the U.S. - more 15,000 people, including 7,100 active workers at Evendale-based GE Aviation, the industrial conglomerate's jet engine maker.

He also said that he hopes other major local companies such as Procter & Gamble and Kroger join in as they did during the 1992 initiative, as well as smaller businesses.

"In many ways, (Cincinnati) is typical ... things we think we can do here are translatable," Immelt said. "But even with our size, (GE is) only 3 percent of the local health care market so we need to join in with all the other local companies. Even with a good health care system like we have here, we need to change the shape of the (cost) curve."

Given its large health care infrastructure business, GE could also benefit by the creation of such health information exchanges as well as improved technology.

Immelt said Blue Ash-based Health Bridge, Inc. could be a good conduit for all the ideas, since it already has connections with area health care providers as well as customers.

The non-profit company works to improve all health care, especially through sharing of information but also to improve treatments, said president and CEO Robert Steffel. He added that GE Aviation is on the Health Bridge board, and that Immelt's idea is an extension of an existing grant application for a stimulus grant for health care information sharing systems.

What Immelt is proposing "is very doable," Steffel said. "He said very explicitly that government can't fix it, that it's up to the community. And this would entail everyone sitting around the table working together."

If the Dems plan on doing this they just need to ram a good bill through.

It would upset a bunch of people who probably didn't vote for them in the last election cycle [if the Democrats pass Obamacare].

I think it would help Dems more than hurt. The Dems chickened out in the 90's on this ...

I think the dems will be ok once people see that the "death panels" the gop ran around screaming about doesn't happen.

Who will be paying for all of that?

The nonpartisan CBO says it will cut the deficit.