Just as I’ve been basking in the warm afterglow of turning 76, now comes 57-year-old Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, brother of former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, to tell me I’d be better off dead, and so would society.
In a highly controversial essay that appears in the October 2014 edition of The Atlantic, “Why I hope to die at 75,” Emanuel states his case for death at 75. If he were just some kook on the margin of society, we could dismiss his views without further fuss.
However, Dr. Emanuel is anything but marginal, especially when it comes to health care issues. He was a key contributor to the Obamacare deliberations, and his previous work included his so-called “complete lives system” of allocating health resources. As I understand it, this system would have given adolescents and young adults priority in receiving health care, while putting infants and the elderly at the end of the line.
I don’t know how much influence the “Brothers Emanuel” had on what went into what became known as Obamacare, but I fear it was a lot. Most of the writing of the legislation was done behind closed doors, with cost-cutting as one of the priorities. When I heard then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi say, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it,” I feared the worst.
In “Why I hope to die at 75,” Emanuel expresses his arrogant, self-centered opinion on people over 75 as not being as productive as we used to be. We “don’t contribute to work, society, the world.” We are more likely to be disabled, “a state that may not be worse than death but is nonetheless deprived.” In Zeke’s view, we “set expectations, render judgments, impose our opinions, interfere, and are generally a looming presence for even adult children.”
Ironically, much of what Emanuel spouts is itself both ageist and arbitrary. Here’s what he writes about his 87-year-old father, who suffered a heart attack about 10 years ago, “Since then he has not been the same. Once the prototype of a hyperactive Emanuel, suddenly his walking, his talking, his humor got slower. Today he can swim, read the newspaper, needle his kids on the phone, and still live with my mother in their own house. But everything seems sluggish. Although he didn’t die from the heart attack, no one would say he is living a vibrant life.”
  Emanuel goes on to quote his father, “I have slowed down tremendously. That is a fact. I no longer make rounds at the hospital or teach.” Still, Emanuel admits, “He also said he was happy.” So his dad is 87, which is 12 years beyond Zeke’s death wish date, and still happy. Only a zealot like Zeke could find fault with that.
Emanuel’s elitist essay is an exercise in narcissism. He is, of course, entitled to his own opinions, however erroneous and offensive they may be. However, he is not entitled to impose them on you and me. I prefer to live till I die. In short, speak for yourself, Zeke!
Retired Army Col. Thomas B. Vaughn can be reached at tbvbwmi@blomand.net.