FWIW, I just got back from a week-long canoeing trip down the Allagash River in Maine. We went a total of 60 miles in 5 days. One of the guys in our group is 72 years old, and nobody can keep up with him. He also hikes, bikes, and goes downhill skiing.
When my father retired, he took up teaching windsurfing to people a third his age and went to Cape Hatteras twice a year to windsurf. He was thrilled to turn 70 because it meant he could get free lift tickets at some ski resorts. At 90 he still goes to the gym and does Zumba classes a couple times a week, and recently did five sets of 25 pushups each over the course of a one-hour exercise class.
There are people who are ancient in the 50s. Not everybody has good genes. If someone still has a life expectancy of 10+ years, based on family history, I do not consider them ancient.
For me, I’ll call my parents ancient after they reach the age of their parents’ death. Most of my grandparents passed away after 84, and even many of my greatgrandparents were over 85 when they passed away. Of course I am biased. But my parents are still doing more at their age that others do at 20 year younger.
And, I would like to see someone call my mother timid. They might not live.
We are definitely using ancient in a different way. I’m using it to mean very old, with no judgment implied. You can feel ancient when you’re still relatively young, but the same goes for feeling old, and I know some people do still try to claim mid-70s isn’t old, either, but it is. That’s why it’s impressive when people of that age are still really active. It is relative, of course - a professional footballer in their forties is old, while in most of the rest of life they’re not - but there are very few circumstances where someone in their 70s isn’t at the very least old.
Can 80 be ancient? Or is it such a pejorative word that it should never be used?
He’s correct. It’s not the purpose of private for-profit corporations to establish sensible healthcare policy or to serve some social welfare function. I refer you to post #75.
Currently the US rations healthcare far more severely than other western nations, and end up with costs far in excess of them (and generally poorer results).
Perhaps you should actually address the issues with a for-profit healthcare system before considering even more rationing.
I’m not sure it is pejorative, exactly. Myself I just find it a slightly weird word to apply to people except as hyperbole - “man that guy over there looks really ancient.” To me ancient implies something really, really old. REALLY old. I don’t think of Dover Castle as ancient, but the Parthenon qualifies.
Might be an American English vs. UK English usage issue, or it might just be me. Probably just me.
No, the triage isn’t exclusively age-based. Someone can be 75yo and a crapshoot, someone else can be 75yo and in ridiculously good health. My mother and a friend of hers (similar age, both about 75 in fact) got the same diagnostic (diverticulitis) from the same doctor; Mom went into “let’s try everything we possibly can in order to avoid surgery” while the friend was offered surgery straightaway (eventually they both had the same surgical team). Friend has a normal-for-their-age medical history, with the only prior big problem being a ton of allergies and the only previous surgery being for her tonsils; Mom’s history overflowed 3 folders before it was digitized and it got digitized 20 years ago.
Tragic OP. More people should be aware that there is a thing called Medical Tourism. There are many places in the world where you can get top-notch medical care, including all kinds of surgery, for a fraction of the cost in the US. For example, insulin is incredibly cheap in India (relative to US standards). Is it not possible to visit India, establish yourself with an endocrinologist there, and have insulin shipped out to you with a prescription? I do not know about the legality of this, though. I would think the DEA would balk at narcotic painkillers and stuff like that, but maybe not insulin and regular medication.
Insulin must be kept refrigerated. I’m very wary of getting it shipped, even from Canada. In fact, I just take it on blind faith that my insulin is kept refrigerated on its way to my local pharmacy.
Not just you. “Ancient” to me means not just old, but extremely and unusually old. When applied to a living being, it also carries a connotation of decrepitude; though it doesn’t carry that connotation if applied to, say, literature.
This, also. Some people at 75 can reasonably expect to have more good years left, if they get proper medical care, than some other people who are 50, and also more than some other people who are 5, or 5 months.
If there’s only one kidney available, and every other factor is equal, then yes I’d give it to the 50 year old and not the 75 year old, and if it’ll fit I’d give it to the 5 year old, though I don’t know whether small children can use adult kidneys. But every other factor is very rarely equal. And it’s also important to be working on making more kidneys available and on creating artificial ones and on treatments for kidney disease, so the problem comes up less often in the first place.
I also don’t know whether that’s legal; but even if it is, why do you think that people who can’t afford their insulin can afford trips to India?
There is definitely such a thing as medical tourism. It, like non-medical tourism, requires both available money and available time. It’s another instance of ‘people who already have money can often get things cheaper than the price that people who don’t have money have to pay for them’.
