Ezekiel Emanuel: Death to Those With Dementia, as Useless Eaters

Ezekiel Emanuel...brother of Rahm Emanuel

Ezekiel Emanuel, the top healthcare adviser at Obama’s Budget Office and brother of his chief of staff, believes it is “obvious” that people with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia (estimated as one of three people who live beyond the age of 65) should be denied health-care, since they are “irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens.” An essay published in the Hastings Center Report (Nov-Dec 1996) by Emanuel, Norman Daniels and Bruce Jennings, says in part:

“This civic republican or deliberative democratic conception of the good provides both procedural and substantive insights for developing a just allocation of health care resources. Procedurally, it suggests the need for public forums to deliberate about which health services should be considered basic and should be socially guaranteed. Substantively, it suggests services that promote the continuation of the polity – those that ensure healthy future generations, ensure development of practical reasoning skills, and ensure full and active participation by citizens in public deliberation – are to be socially guaranteed as basic. Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=2&subcatid=30&threadid=2724097

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/02/dr_ezekiel_emanuel_rahms_broth.html

http://www.slu.edu/x26866.xml

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/07/26/ezekiel-emanuel-deny-coverage-to-elderly-and-disabled-for-the-greater-good.php

Obama advisor would ration medical care to seniors, young children, the demented

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Obama-advisor-would-deny-medical-care-to-seniors-demented-51414342.html

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
07/22/09 2:57 PM EDT

No wonder President Obama is in such a rush to get his health care reform package through Congress before the August recess. And before the public finds out about Ezekiel Emanuel, special advisor to Peter Orzag, Obama’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and brother to White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Emanuel has written in medical journals of how health care should be rationed, with priority given to younger people over seniors and over those suffering from dementia, according to John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). Ezekiel also believes that very young children should be lower on the priority list than younger people who have received public educations.

Goodman cites an article Ezekiel co-authored with two other men that appeared in the January 31, 2009, edition of the British medical journal, The Lancet. Goodman also cites a 1996 article by Ezekiel that appeared in The Hastings Report. In the latter, which was titled “Where civic republicanism and deliberative democracy meet,” Ezekiel argued for limiting health care for “individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens.”  He cited “not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia” as an example.

Goodman offers additional analysis on his blog of Ezekiel’s presence among Obama’s health care advisors. Goodman notes that the health care reform legislation now being crafted in Congress includes a provision designed to ration the availability of MRI, CT and other advanced technology scans that often are critical to identifying dangerous diseases at a sufficiently early stage to enable life-extending treatment:

“An example of what can be done is actually in legislation being written on Capitol Hill. Buried somewhere in the 1,000 plus pages is a provision to severely limit what Medicare pays for CT and MRI scans performed in doctors’ offices. This would force elderly patients, for example, to go to the hospital for their radiology — where there are often lengthy waits. Patients in rural areas who must travel long distances to get to hospital-based testing facilities may be discouraged from getting the tests done at all.”

“individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens.”  Emanuel wrote, “An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.”

Goodman notes that the World Health Organization estimates that 25,000 cancer patients die in Britain annually as a result of such restrictions on medical scans.