Leaders laugh off seniors' issues, but we're not smiling

Who says our presidential administration doesn't have a sense of humor? It plays practical jokes all the time. Remember when it said free trade is the key to stability and peace in the world? Joke's on us.

It meant free trade except for our steel, our lumber and our farm products. Joke's on us. Remember how leaders used to talk about the crises in health care? Remember how they promised to do something about it?

Well, they did something about it. They made it worse. Joke's on us again.

According to an article in the New York Times by Robert Pear on Sept. 23, the Bush administration intends to cut Medicare payments to hospitals for outpatient treatment, mainly affecting treatments for the elderly and the disabled. These leaders have figured out how to pay for the war on Iraq: They can jettison us. Dick Cheney can have his pacemaker because he can afford private insurance, but the rest of us will face a co-pay for the same device.

What is going on here? Last year we were talking about relief from escalating prescription drug costs. That didn't fly, what with the tax cut and all. Now we're faced with the probability of escalating outpatient costs for vital procedures and devices, and escalating costs of drugs and devices administered by hospitals' outpatient departments. That means chemotherapy, AIDS treatments and pacemaker maintenance.

The elderly and the disabled are clearly not the fittest. So we become the most expendable. The notion here is that those in power are the fittest. I challenge that idea. This bunch seems morally and ethically unfit, but I'll grant that it is the strongest.

Apparently, the leaders think that by knocking us off quietly, by preventing us from getting treatments that will help us survive, they will still the voices that might preach reason and restraint. We are the voices of experience. We are not the voices of power. Reason has always struggled with the heady temptations of power.

If a nation abandons its commitment to its aging population, it sets itself up as an uncaring powerhouse. In 20 years, when these same people need the compassion and respect of those who succeed them, they may wonder why they set up a system that approves the industrial euthanasia of its experienced people.

Maybe they think the financial burden on them is too great. Apparently, they don't realize that we carried that same burden all our working lives, with the expectation that we would get a fair return for our efforts.

Denying health care and health maintenance to all but the rich ensures that valuable people will die before their time. That may help the budget, but it will not help the nation.

The best defense is a good offense? Maybe so. But as it applies to domestic policy, knocking off oldsters by denying life-saving treatments means pre-empting votes that don't reflect the national aim of world dominance.

This "policy change" is aimed at those of us who are weakest. It will prevent voices in the national debate to advocate care for the people who have built this nation. It's a cost-cutting move. Unfortunately, the price is our lives. It is a pre-emptive strike to eliminate us.

What we have here is a ticked off old lady. I've paid my taxes, kicked into the system, and I just don't get the joke. Is it that all those guys who robbed their corporations and quit with millions get the last laugh after all? No one offered me a golden parachute, but then, I wasn't clever enough to hoodwink the whole world.

I was the dumb one, the poor fool who thought I'd be able to live on Social Security with Medicare. I'm the one who thought that I'd be able to get a defibrillating pacemaker if I needed it. I thought I might be able to take advantage of breakthroughs in the fight against cancer. Little did I know that the joke would be on me.

Maybe I'll start laughing any minute now. Or maybe I'll just slip into hysteria. I guess it's okay to die laughing.

- Write to Sheila Stoll c/o Seniority, the Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.

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