Letter: Slippery slope: Deciding who lives

“My mother wanted to die, but the doctors wouldn’t let her. At least that’s the way it seemed to me…” These words begin the Newsweek article printed last week entitled, “The Case for Killing Granny.”

But let’s say the real story could soon be, “My mother wanted to live, but the government said it was too expensive to keep her alive.”

If you think that sounds ridiculous, get used to it, because our current government administration is conditioning our country to accept and justify doing just that.

Canada, with its socialized health care, already places their citizens on a statistical grid, determining who will, or won’t, receive health care. My uncle, who lived in Canada, experienced the agony of wanting to live, but was told to go home and die.

My Canadian uncle and family thought socialized medicine was acceptable when they were young, healthy, and they could contribute more to society than what they were taking.

But when Uncle Jack was in his 70s, he was diagnosed with lung cancer, and when age or severe illness is combined with expensive treatment, medical services in a socialized health system are generally denied.

The deeper the U.S. goes into debt, the less money a government-controlled healthcare system will have to spend on treatments and procedures. To adjust for less money, and to cut costs, the definition of “too old” will become younger, and the term “severely ill” will become broader.

If the government does take over the health care industry, we will no longer have the option to decide much of anything.

Shouldn’t it be the individual and the family who choose when to live or die, not the government?

Tags: letter to editor, opinion