"If you show up with cancer & you're 95 years old, we should say...we can't do anything..."

[LaurenOlimina]

127. It was in the context of criticizing the ACA.

Segal’s brother: …I apologize for bringing up conditions in New York City during this [visit], but in light of my brother’s death, I must tell you that we have, I know you know this, but from personal experience the overcrowding in the emergency rooms is insane. He was there for 73 hours [inaudible] —

Bloomberg: It’s going to get worse with the health care bill [the Affordable Care Act] and with the governor’s cutbacks, because the governor’s cutbacks — which, he may not have any choice in all fairness to the governor — but there’d be less money, some of these small hospitals will close, some of these other programs, and people will come to the HHC [New York Health and Hospitals Corporation] hospitals, and that’s —

Segal’s brother: — They’ll be there for days, [inaudible].

Bloomberg: Well, they try to decide what things they can fix right away and what things they can’t fix right away. If you’re bleeding, they’ll stop the bleeding, if you need an X-Ray, you’re going to have to wait. That’s just — all of these costs keep going up, nobody wants to pay any more money, and at the rate we’re going, health care is going to bankrupt us. So not only do we have a problem, it’s going to bankrupt us, and we’ve got to sit here and say which things we’re going to do and which things we’re not. Nobody wants to do that. If you show up with prostate cancer and you’re 95 years old, we should say, ‘Go and enjoy, have a nice [inaudible], lead a long life.’ There’s no cure and you can’t do anything. If you’re a young person, we should do something about it. Society’s not willing to do that yet. So we’re going to bankrupt us, and we’re not looking at prophylactic care. We’re not trying to take care of things so we don’t get sick. Nobody ever says thank you for keeping you from getting sick, they say thank you if you’re sick and we cure you […].