A video has resurfaced showing Michael Bloomberg discussing healthcare costs in what looks like somebody’s living room. In the clip, Bloomberg is explaining that healthcare costs are so high that we are looking at bankrupting our country. There are some tough decision to be made, according to Bloomberg, one of which is denying care to the elderly.
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: If you’re bleeding we have to stop the bleeding. If you need an X-ray, you’ll have to wait. All of these costs keep going up. Nobody wants to pay any more money, and at the rate we are going, healthcare is going to bankrupt us. So not only do we have a problem, so we gotta sit here and say which things we’re gonna do, and which things we’re not. Nobody wants to do that. […] If you show up with prostate cancer, you’re 95 years old. We should say “Go and enjoy, have a nice one, you’ve lived a long life. There’s no cure. We can’t do anything.” A young person we should do something about. Society is not willing to do that yet. So we’re gonna go bankrupt.
One thing to put into perspective here is that most scientific estimates say that around 20% of ALL men older than 65 years old will develop prostate cancer. If you are lucky enough to live to be 95 years of age, there’s a good chance you’ve had prostate cancer already or will be getting it. If you are healthy enough at 95 years old for a doctor to tell you they can treat your prostate cancer, good on you. If you are 95 and you receive a breast cancer diagnosis, the same thing applies. The fact of the matter is that most people at that age are not going to be moved through loads of chemotherapy. But the idea that our high healthcare costs are simply the result of nonagenarians receiving tons of cancer treatments is bullshit.
Another point to make here is that if billionaire Michael Bloomberg lives to be 95, I will bet you all of Michael Bloomberg’s money that Michael Bloomberg won’t be hearing, or expecting to hear, a doctor or a fucking mayor tell him to, “Go and enjoy, have a nice one, you’ve lived a long life. There’s no cure. We can’t do anything.” If that day comes, prostate cancer research will receive the largest single donation in the history of cancer research, and Michael Bloomberg will be receiving experimental treatments in space.
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*Story by Daily Kos