We’ve seen heart-wrenching decisions to ration healthcare in Italy and New York. Now with the recent surge, the lives of seniors might be in jeopardy for lack of hospital beds or equipment.

In many states, odds are against you if you are an older adult needing hospitalization:

– Gray hair allows a triage doctor to withhold medical care at their discretion, should they feel your life expectancy might not be longer than 5 years. It’s called Crisis Standards of Care, and the physician is absolved of liability. Look it up.

– If you are unable to make decisions but do not provide paperwork with a designee, an HMO or hospital can legally usurp decision-making away from your loved ones. Look up Default Surrogate Consent Statues for your state.

– Public confusion over the terms “palliative,” “hospice” and “comfort care” easily launch patients out of acute care into nursing homes. Patients are surreptitiously placed on hospice, saving the hospital and HMO money.

– Obviously, prematurely transferring from a hospital to a nursing home puts you back into harm’s way.

Rationing is not rational. It is a purge surge, and it’s an assault on seniors.

Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D., is a geriatric house-call physician who serves as president of the Los Angeles County Commission for Older Adults and Assemblyman to the California Senior Legislature. He has practiced in the Santa Clarita Valley for 32 years.