Bloomberg May be Toast After Implying we Shouldn’t Treat Some Elderly Patients

The former mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg did not have a good media day today. A couple of old clips surfaced, one about farmers and the other about medical treatments for the elderly.

The first clip that came out this morning is from a speech Bloomberg gave at Oxford’s business school in 2016, “I could teach anybody – even people in this room, no offense intended – to be a farmer,” Bloomberg said. “It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn. You could learn that.” Bloomberg then moved on to industrial jobs, “then we had 300 years of the industrial society. You put the piece of metal in the lathe, you turn the crank in direction of an arrow, and you can have a job,”

Bloomberg then explained that technology jobs are “fundamentally different, because it’s built around replacing people with technology and the skill sets you need to learn are how to think and analyze and that is a whole degree level different, you need to have different skill set. You have to have a lot more gray matter.”

Billionaire Bloomberg claims he "could teach anybody to be a farmer," even implying that farmers don't have the same level of "skillset" or "grey matter" as folks in tech jobs.

So demeaning, elitist, and out-of-touch it's appalling. pic.twitter.com/Auplmdq56m

— Anna Kelly (@AnnaKellyWI) February 17, 2020

On the same day, a video of Bloomberg talking with the Segal family in 2011 also surfaced. In the clip, Bloomberg is talking about a solution to the enviably of healthcare “bankrupting us”. His solution, to turn away the elderly for treatment of chronic conditions such as a 95-year-old with cancer.

Bloomberg explaining how healthcare will “bankrupt us,” unless we deny care to the elderly.

“If you show up with cancer & you’re 95 years old, we should say…there’s no cure, we can’t do anything.

A young person, we should do something. Society’s not willing to do that, yet.” pic.twitter.com/7E5UFHXLue

— Samuel D. Finkelstein II (@CANCEL_SAM) February 16, 2020

The video has received some backlash from both the left and the right. See Bernie supporter comments below:

Yeah,I am most definitely not a Bloomberg fan, but this isn’t far fetched. Giving harsh chemo to a 95 year old with terminal cancer cruel and inhuman.
But he’s a asshole for saying “denying care”, a consult to hospice isn’t denying care. It’s providing what is needed https://t.co/RaHT9vlDtY

— Nurse Ratched (@veggie64_leslie) February 16, 2020

House minority whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) also weighed in on Twitter.

Dems don’t want you to know being denied care is the reality of the government-run healthcare they want.

Bloomberg was the first to slip & admit it:

If you're 95 years old & have cancer, "we should say go & enjoy…there's no cure & we can't do anything." pic.twitter.com/VXJNH3XetK

— Steve Scalise (@SteveScalise) February 17, 2020