A LIFE WORTH SAVING
My father, Michael Salvatore Morrongiello, came to this country via Ellis Island with his family when he was eight years old. He loved this country deeply, and served with the War Department during World War II. He loved having family and friends gathered around the table sharing food, wine and a funny story.
He walked for miles, hauled heavy loads and read widely into his 90’s. He was forthright and generous. Dad shared the bounty of his amazing garden with friends and neighbors, and helped them with home repairs. Children were drawn to him; they knew a true heart when they saw one. Dad was always making friends, many half his age. Adults knew a true heart too.
Dad was diagnosed with cancer when he was 86. His strong body was beginning to betray him; it happens to us all. “Can he survive the surgery?” I asked his doctor, who replied, “He’s an ox. He’ll make it.” He made it, and lived nine more happy, productive years.
Dad’s great loves, besides my mother, were gardening and baseball. He was 88 when we took him to the Baseball Hall of Fame. “I faced Satchel Paige,” he said. “He threw so hard the ball looked like an aspirin.” When asked, “Did you hit the ball, Dad?” he grimaced: “Don’t ask.” “I saw Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb play,” he told anyone who would listen. “This guy is really old,” someone said, I replied, “Yeah, he’s great”.
Jane Sturm (available on Utube) told the story of her elderly mother who was denied, but eventually got, a pacemaker. She asked Obama, “Outside the medical criteria…is there consideration given for a certain spirit…and quality of life?” Obama coldly said, “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkillers.”
Dr. Zeke Emanuel is an Obama health care adviser and an advocate of the “Complete Lives System” of health care distribution, in which people ages 15 to 40 get the most health care; if you’re younger or older, your chances are “attenuated.”
Denying health care to the old is justified, according to Emanuel, because “everyone who is 65 now was once twenty-five.” What a striking contrast to the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said, “The care of human life…is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” He understood that the old and the sick are gifts to us, deserving of our protection.
Under ObamaCare, would my dad have gotten the cancer surgery? I doubt it. Some Obama appointee would say, “take the pain killers.” In Britain they call it Quality Adjusted Life Years (QUALY). In their single payer plan, if you have too few QUALY’s left, take the pain killers. Under ObamaCare, as in Britain, the old, the very young and the sick are “attenuated.”
