Age Cap

Faceless Stranger

Faceless Stranger

Board Drifter
Either last year, or the year before that I sprained my wrist. I headed to the hospital the morning after to get an X-ray as I wasn't sure if it was a sprain or a fracture. Being in Canada, the healthcare is free. For that very reason it seems to be exploited by the elderly. I waited for around 6-7 hours for my x-ray and finally ended up leaving when it started feeling better on it's own. While I was waiting however I manged to get a seat that had a view of the front of the hospital. I watched as the ambulances would go out and come back, and I began to notice a pattern.

Every time the ambulances would return, a new elderly person would be pushed down the hallway in a stretcher moments later. I don't think there was one person under the age of 65 that was brought by ambulance. As I watched those old people get wheeled by, I took a look around the waiting room. There were middle aged people and children, some of whom looked alot worse than the elderly folks sitting up in their stretchers. Some of those kids had even been there since before I had arrived.

I ask now: Should there be an age cap as to being allowed to recieve aid? Should it go even further than that ala Logan's Run? Why or why not?

In my opinion, past the age of 65, a person should be forbidden from recieving aid from a paramedic or hospital. My reasoning for this is that there are people in greater need of help, and they are forced to wait because the elderly take priority.
 
Faceless_Stranger said:
In my opinion, past the age of 65, a person should be forbidden from recieving aid from a paramedic or hospital.
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Are you for real? Why should they not receive healthcare?

I totally agree that they should not have priority over others, just because they're old... But cutting people off at an age mark that you decide is too old?

Don't get me wrong, my blood boils when I watch useless old people slow things down, but I wouldn't exactly sentence them for just being old.
 
If there is another way, like them being lower on the list, then I'm all for it, but people will always fell sorry for the old people and they'll end up taking priority over the rest of us.
 
Faceless_Stranger said:
If there is another way, like them being lower on the list, then I'm all for it, but people will always fell sorry for the old people and they'll end up taking priority over the rest of us.
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Here's an even better solution, let's just kill'em once they are past 65.
 
Hamenaglar said:
Faceless_Stranger said:
If there is another way, like them being lower on the list, then I'm all for it, but people will always fell sorry for the old people and they'll end up taking priority over the rest of us.
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Here's an even better solution, let's just kill'em once they are past 65.
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That's my "Plan B from Logan's Run" idea
 
Suppose those people were coming in for an appointment or for something serious (as is common with people being driven in by ambulances), and as such they took priority over your minor wrist bruise?

I never witnessed an old person taking priority in a hospital just because they're old. They've gone in before me, yes, but that's because they've got fuck all to do and got there way before me.

Other than getting seats from people on the bus and occasionally being able to skip a queue in a supermarket because they can hardly stand and are only buying that one fucking loaf of bread, I'd say being old has very few perks in today's society.
 
Killing them won't give you a discount.

I can't believe I'm defending old people here, it's like for the first time in my life!

But I just pictured what it would be like growing up 50, 60 years ago, without Internet or most technological advances we're so used to - essentially growing up into another world! - putting things away for your children and grandchildren, maybe even going to war for your country, and receiving zero acknowledgement, watching all the money you saved working like a slave your whole life shrink and disappear due to economy you don't even understand, only to have some impatient prick go 'hey, we should kill all you slow farts' and be denied the treatment you paid for.
 
When I studied medical ethics, we discussed prioritizing in health care. One of the matters discussed was the way people are given priority based on how much of their life wll be saved compared to someone else, and what quality of life the patient can expect after a procedure compared to someone else.

On this basis, old people would not be given priority at all if a situation should arise where you had to choose between treating a young person with a good expected quality of life, and longer survival or an older person who might not recover fully after treatment and/or who might not have a very long life expectancy despite treatment.

The reason you had to wait was more likely that the elderly people had more pressing conditions that needed to be treated immediately. Myocardial infarction isn't as common in young people, y'know? Life threatening conditions will always take priority over broken limbs.
 
"Leaving your family members to die in a sterile room surrounded by strangers." Pretty much sums it up for me. We can't look at the individual players in this. It's not the point of letting old people die, it's the point that it will be better in the long run for this generation and the next.
 
Ah, that's one of Hick's best bits IMO! :lol:
Faceless_Stranger said:
"Leaving your family members to die in a sterile room surrounded by strangers." Pretty much sums it up for me. We can't look at the individual players in this. It's not the point of letting old people die, it's the point that it will be better in the long run for this generation and the next.
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I don't know what this 'long run' is, it's not like old people are dragging us down, kicking and screaming, doing anything they can to stop us from enjoying life... Most are just miserable with the lack of acknowledgement they receive (no surprise with people like you around) and keep to themselves.

Think about this - you grow up and study one third of your life, you work your ass off even longer than that and by the time you've reached the pitiful remnant of your life (hopefully with some retirement $, but definitely sick and tired), someone deems it appropriate for you to be put down, because you're wasting everyone's time and money.

This is beyond the pros and cons debate that usually surrounds topics like capital punishment, this is just ignorant.
 
I'm not saying that we should euthanize them specifically. I don't hate old people, and I appreciate the accomplishments that they managed through their lives. It's just that many kids are left to wait (Here anyways) while the elderly are treated for their menial ailments. Brainstorm here people, we must find solutions!
 
Yeah - tell the kids to suck it the fuck up - they've got their whole life ahead of them and an hour wait is not gonna kill them (as it might the people arriving in an ambulance).

Hospitals are for sick people. Statistically there are more sick old people than there are sick young people. There's nothing to brainstorm about other than making sure that those with the most urgent claim get served first, old or young.
 
Faceless_Stranger said:
If there is another way, like them being lower on the list, then I'm all for it, but people will always fell sorry for the old people and they'll end up taking priority over the rest of us.
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Of course 'the rest of us' includes you. Presumably you'll end up being, y'know, 65 at some point in the future. Bet you wouldn't like being shoved aside when you're 65 just because you're, well, 65.

It would also encourage people to stop working a lot earlier so they can actually enjoy life sooner.


Fact is, old people require a lot more healthcare than younger people. That's just the nature of being old.

Faceless_Stranger said:
I'm not saying that we should euthanize them specifically. I don't hate old people, and I appreciate the accomplishments that they managed through their lives. It's just that many kids are left to wait (Here anyways) while the elderly are treated for their menial ailments. Brainstorm here people, we must find solutions!
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They prioritize by seriousness of injury. Minor fracture for a 20-year-old: low priority. Broken hip for an 80-year-old: high priority. The first is essentially nothing more than an inconvenience that can stand to wait. The second is life-threatening.
 
If you don't want to sit and wait and complain in some hospital outpatient waiting room I'm sure there is a private healthcare center you can make a appointment with.
 
Some points of your discussion are really depressing me even when i assume that most of you are younger guys.
Nevertheless it´s sounds horrible to read some of this files..
It would be much better to get worked up for a better health care that we all of us are deserving.
 
There is, however, in the midst of this seemingly naive and egocentric topic, an interesting problem : everyday we are spending more and more resources, just for the sake of what we call "health care", on extending life at all costs.

But at which point health care stops become being health care and becomes playing god, aka artificially extending life whereas the body is naturally supposed to, well, give up ?

In a private mutualized system, it's all about the choice of the people mutualizing their money, so I'd say it's fair. But in a free health care system like we have where I live (and I'm glad we have it), it's something we didn't really chose, more like a side effect of how this big bureaucratic thing works.

I'm wondering if there shouldn't be a point, when the body is obviously in a state where it can't stand the constraints of the outside world anymore, where we should leave it as it is, and stop spending resources fixing and patching it up. (That is, until a definitive *cure* to aging process is worked out. At this point the question should be reexamined)
As you may know it there isn't such thing as "age" as a dying cause.
You always die because of some illness. So, pushing the logic of the medical system people should not die. Ever. Do you see the... logic hole here ?
There is a point where it just becomes counter productive trying to restrain all the agents attacking a body who can't defend itself anymore...

I'm asking a quite biased question, but I really don't know myself, it's more a provocative attempt to get some counter arguments. It's probably just a thing of the youth to underestimate how much you'll want to keep living at all costs when you'll be older...
 
My buddie's dad had early stages of flesh-eating disease on his leg and STILL had to wait for half-a-day to get it checked, even then, the only reason they did pull him in was because it had gotten to the point where if they had waited any longer, he would've lost his leg. Now, I wonder who was being treated during those many hours of waiting?
 
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