New Ad from FRC Seems to Say Old People Shouldn’t Get Expensive Operations

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My reactions to what passes for a “health care” discussion in the US kind of vacillates – between eye-rolling and outright gagging. The ad below evokes both reactions. It’s the latest from the Family Research Council, defenders of “family values” and who claim to respect and value human life.

In the clip below, however, is a short exchange between a young boy and his grandfather, presumably when some version of expanded health coverage has been passed. The message – as near as I can figure out – seems aimed at disrespecting and devaluing the lives of seniors.

FRC doesn’t provide captioning for its video, so here’s a summary:

The young boy asks if his grandpa is still going to see a doctor about the operation and asks if it will be expensive.

Grandpa says he’s going to have it and it will be expensive, but it’s free, thanks to the government program (gee, Medicare, maybe?).

The kid says his dad says nothing is free and that dad is paying for the operation.

Grandpa laughs and says that’s silly – it’s the kid that is paying for it. At that point, the kid picks up his briefcase and his Wall Street Journal and goes off to work.

What’s the message here?

Old people are greedy bloodsuckers?
We should get rid of Medicare?
Old people shouldn’t get expensive operations (unless they’re rich)?

Really, please please explain this to me. Tell me how this isn’t a message that selfish old people shouldn’t just shuffle off and die.

Yeah, yeah… I get that FRC is talking about the deficit and its impact on future generations, but I don’t remember similar complaints during the previous administration. That’s when the President and Congress were keeping the huge costs of the Iraq war off the books, accompanied by tax cuts for the wealthiest, resulting in a huge deficit.

Apparently, they liked the war, but don’t like the idea of funding health care. And that makes it OK to go after Grandpa. Check the video out for yourself below. –Stephen Drake

8 thoughts on “New Ad from FRC Seems to Say Old People Shouldn’t Get Expensive Operations”

  1. The first question from the child is, “Are you still on the list to see the doctor?” So the ad implies rationing as well as enormous deficit spending. Also note the nice upper-middle-class home, and the lack of evidence of what’s wrong with dear old grandpa. Yep, getting sick in this country is selfish all right.

  2. The summary is good for me. Thanks.
    John L. Hess, the late journalist, used to protest the media blitz that pits the old against the young, in the fight that began with passing the Social Security Act…

    John L. Hess’ blog is still online.
    Google his name. He used to say they were calling us “greedy old geezers”. The battle is morphing into “rationing health care” while
    telling us to “volunteer” (as in the movie “Soylent Green”) for “assited suicide” or just drop dead, any way we’d like.

    See ProPublica for the article on the home page about rationing plan for NYS if there’s an epidemic. http://www.propublica.org
    Scary stuff. My comment was published: suggesting that doctors are not so smart about severe disability. And posting a link to NDY.

    Who will do the triage – it is an ever growing/expanding story in re us and our “peeps”? Whether surgery or “epidemics” of fantasy or reality. It “knocks my socks off” when I see on ProPublica references to the 1918 influenza epidemic as a guide to use. On the other hand, how much has the medical profession REALLY progressed? On disability?

    Denial by the medical profession and all folks who think only “some” are worthy of health care, life, etc. is rampant. I am
    thinking of the wonderful Op Ed piece by Hillary Johnson in the NYTimes on Oct.2l,2009 on “A Case of Denial” – that is, the politics around my severely disabling illness. Ironically, the NYTimes has been as poor on taking CFS/ME seriously (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), as they have in re NDY.

    Everything is connected. It’s selling myths to the public – picking off the different groups:
    convince the young that we, greedy old geezers are robbing their future, convincing the working class that the poor are stealing their health care/social security and …fill in your own “favorites”. I’m going to guess at and use memory here, sigh:
    http://johnlhess.blogspot.com

    John L. Hess had worked for the NYTimes and ended up “taking them on” in his memoir, which they never reviewed.

  4. Hi Stephen,

    I don’t believe that the FRC was intending to attack life care options for senior citizens by that video. Rather, the FRC seems to be a very right-wing conservative Christian organization, which is using the video as a way for them to attack government-run health care. Of course, they aren’t considering the horrible neglect of people who get denied coverage by greedy corporate healthcare insurers. The FRC, along with so many of these “family values” organizations, really are pawns of the evangelical corporate interest. In essence though, it is understandable for you to be concerned about the video, since the video attempts to promote corporate control over healthcare, rather than government control of healthcare; control which by the corporations let people die for the sake of profits. Apparently they believe that their God will be okay with that, considering how they’ve turned God from being a caring, compassionate, loving, and loyal God, into being a deity whose prime interest is in large amounts of money. It wouldn’t surprise me if eventually they claim that there is a price tag for entering heaven. Oh wait! There already is! People must be subservient to the church and to the corporate powers, of whom are “anointed” by their God to control everyone’s life and to control the entire world.

    Okay, I apologize for my going off topic and into a rant. Yet, by my doing so, I want to express how dangerous the video and its producers really are, in their attempts for the corporate insurers to maintain power over everyone’s health, not just seniors. Thank you for posting the video and your opinions about it, Stephen.

  6. Ah, the Family Research Council! They never saw a war they did not like, but they don’t want to spend a penny to save anybody’s life.

  7. sanabituranima: I saw on the Guardian and Independent yesterday that the father OK’d taking the boy off life-support. I was screaming in my head. The article says the boy has a “normal brain”, is 13months old but can’t “communicate” and “feels pain” – so they will choke him to death. In the name of saving him. Poor baby. Shame on societies that do this.

  8. As someone who follows both FRC and Not Dead Yet, I think that you are misinterpretting their ad. The add was meant to point out that health care rationing for the elderly and permanently disabled will almost certainly be a result of this healthcare bill-just as it is in many European countries. Although I do see your point that it definetely can be interpretted differently.
    Opal

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