I think it's unfair that some people live with illness and others don't. Every healthy person should be given cancer, heart disease, etc. so that no one feels left out.

 And if I should crash my motorcycle and crack open my head, the government had better send someone out into every neighborhood with a hammer, 'cuz I don't want to be the only one suffering. 

As we all know, if the left ever get its plan for socialized medicine in place, it will soon lead to the rationing of health care resources. It has everywhere else.

Not only will the elderly be left out in the cold (as it will only be "fair" to expend limited resources only on those who still have a long time to live and, more importantly, work), but among the elderly I am guessing the "less fortunate" will get the bulk of whatever meager resources that might be afforded that age group.

I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point, the average life expectancy falls short of the eligibility age for collecting Social Security by about a week. Let's be honest here, the last thing the government wants is for you to live long enough to collect SS benefits.

And no, I am not kidding.

Theme for Election '08: I want my mommy!

Could it be that the "discrepancy" between the two demographic groups is due entirely to the reliance by the poorest citizens on government supplied medical funding and treatment requirements via Medicare and Medicaid? Inquiring minds want to know!

The gaps have been increasing despite efforts by the federal government to reduce them.

Milton Friedman could not have said it better himself. How many times do you see goverment programs that have opposite results of their good intentions?

After watching what's been happening in the schools. If some schools are better. The approach isn't to raise the level of the under performing schools; rather it's to dumb down the better schools.

This will be the approach.

My dad's 94. (It seems to be a genetic trait in my family.) Which of these caring people will tell him he's lived too long? Are they going to demand he die?

"There is a clear attempt to establish truth not by scientific methods but by perpetual repetition."
- Richard S. Lindzen, Ph.D. Professor of Meteorology, MIT

Nowhere in that article does the Times suggest that health disparities should be eliminated by decreasing the life expectancies of rich, educated white people. That's just the way you want to read it so that you can feel indignant and make snarky comments about socialism!

What the people researching this phenomenon would like to do is increase the life expectancy of demographic groups lagging behind. So which tactics, exactly, would you object to? Increasing education about the hazards of smoking? Lowering crime in poor neighborhoods? Increasing health literacy across socioeconomic groups? Increasing access to cutting edge medical technology? Perhaps you think it's a good thing that doctors apparently find black people less suitable candidates for surgeries and offer them less aggressive medical treatments, or that black children suffer from asthma.

Of course you don't! There's no reason to object to the idea that we should all have the same chances of living a long and healthy life. No one can guarantee the same lifespan-- in any demographic group there will be wide variation in how long individual people live. But when you see demographic patterns on lower lifespan on average, then it suggests that there is some disadvantage suffered by people because of a demographic they belong to, whether it be race, weath, or education level. Why not try to improve their chances? Except, of course, that such happy sentiments don't leave as much room for clever insults against liberals :)

So I guess the government will form a sandmen agency. ie Logan's Run.

Something I wanted to post more on the “equality” issue than the age issue, but still an interesting product of Hollywood’s leftist tilt…

There is a short story by Kurt Vonnegut called Harrison Bergeron. It’s been years since I read it, but the story tells of a future where being ‘better’ or ‘having more’ is wrong. If you have better vision, you wear glasses to ‘correct’ your eyesight to the norm. Too athletic? Weights to slow you down so you can’t run as fast, jump as high, or dance as well. Even physical attractiveness was regulated to be average, maybe with hair products to dull your hair or false teeth if they’re too straight. It was only mildly a good read until the end. A dancer’s weights begin to fall off and Harrison witnesses what it is to be able to achieve greatness if only you are able to use the talents you have, but the ‘enforcers’ gun down the dancer for shedding his normalness. That’s when he realizes the enforcer is a rather short, unattractive, inathletic woman with no ‘equalizers’. The enforcers set the standards based on their own ‘averageness’.

So, here we have a story about elitists wanting no one to be better than they are or have more.

Now for Hollywood’s version: From the IMDb “After a second civil war, America's leaders have realised that war is idealistic, so they look to an age where ideology was at its lowest point. The golden age of mass consumerism - the 1950s. Children are taught at school to achieve mediocrity, grade C is best, grade A is very bad. Adults are force fed tv with no stimulating content, and strive to buy the newest durable product they see advertised. All brain patterns are controlled by thought suppressing headbands.”

Gee, let’s take a tale about socialism - economic, social, and physical – and change it to a story that trashes the 50’s and consumerism/capitalism, and calls the government warmongering censors. Hmmm…. Way to go, Hollywood. Nope, no bias here…