Well-known health policy expert Betsy McCaughey lays bare
the views of one of President Obama’s chief advisors on the issue in today’s
Wall St. Journal. McCaughey dissects Emanuel’s many articles on the allocation
of resources devoted to health care services, expositing his anti-elderly bias
using his own words. The graph below sums up his views quite nicely–at least
Emanuel thinks it does since he used it in a January 2009 article written for The
Lancet.  McCaughey refers to this as
“the reaper curve.” It is a description of the way Emanuel thinks
things should be, not the way they are. Notice, Emanuel believes that the
probability of one receiving health care services should begin to decline at
around age 30 with a sharp decline starting in their late 50s and into their
60s and 70s. Of course, it is in these last three decades of life where people
will need health care services the most.

 

 [mccaughey]