Chuck Lauer: Why Dr. Zeke Emanuel is wrong

Suffice it to say there are many, many individuals well into their 80s who are still productive and doing incredible things.

One of the most cherished honors I received during my years as publisher of Modern Healthcare was the 2004 DeBakey Award for Achievement in Healthcare. The award was sponsored by the American Institute of Architects' Academy of Architecture for Health, and was presented to me at a gala banquet one night in Washington.
 
Only eight years earlier, I had the distinct honor of inducting Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, considered America's greatest heart surgeon, into the Health Care Hall of Fame. I remember sitting and chatting with him prior to introducing him. We talked about many things, including how proud he was that his daughter would soon graduate from high school and go on to college. At age 87, he was lively, sharp and funny. We talked about how he was still performing surgeries in his early 80s. He was everything I thought he would be, and he regaled me with a number of stories about his career.
 
Only a few months later, at the age of 88, DeBakey supervised Russian heart surgeons who performed bypass surgery on Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
 
The reason I bring this up is because in the October 2014 issue of The Atlantic, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel wrote an article entitled, "Why I Hope to Die at 75." That statement seems odd coming from one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act. Naturally, his comments caused quite a stir because he is still considered one of the most influential doctors in America, a key health advisor to President Barack Obama and the brother of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Many pondered that because he advocates life past 75 is not worth living, at some point there may be public policy implications.
 
In the article Emanuel writes: "The fact is that by 75, creativity, originality and productivity are pretty much gone for the vast, vast majority of us…. It is true people can continue to be productive past 75 — to write and publish, to draw, carve, and sculpt, to compose. But there is not getting around the data. By definition, few of us can be exceptions."
 
Thought-provoking stuff, but let's look at the record:
 
When President Ronald Reagan gave his famous speech challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall he was 76, and history buffs will tell you that no speech was more crucial to ending 20th century European communism.
 
Then there is the great British leader Winston Churchill who completed one of the 20th century's greatest historical works, "A History of the English-Speaking Peoples," when he was 77, and still prime minister of Great Britain.
 
Astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, became the oldest person in space at 77 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.
 
Then there is Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who when he was 78 wrote an opinion familiar to every law student that outlined the limits of free speech. His colleague, Louis Brandeis, served on the court for 23 years, well into his 80s. Furthermore, four of the nine current members of the Supreme Court justices are over 75.
 
Great authors, including Gorge Bernard Shaw and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe did some of their best writing after they were 75, and two of the immortal artists of the Renaissance, Michelangelo and Titian, worked prolifically until they were nearly 90.
 
Suffice it to say there are many, many individuals well into their 80s who are still productive and doing incredible things, like running successful businesses. I know many of them personally, and have heard their sage and cogent insights into all manner of things. Certainly, there are people age 75 who are retired and no longer contribute to society, but those who still get out in the world are often achieving great things.
 
I cannot for the life of me understand why someone like Dr. Emanuel would come to such a conclusion about the value of later years. Contending that anyone over 75 is, for all intent and purposes, washed up really makes me wonder why President Obama would have chosen Dr. Emanuel to help sculpt the Affordable Care Act. It seems to me someone with more common sense and objectivity, perhaps someone in his 70s, would have been a better choice, in light of what has transpired.
 
Maybe we can forgive him. He is only 57 and may not have learned yet that wisdom really does come with age.

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