Monday, July 14, 2008

Two Boomer Final Solutions

Given that the programs likely to suck the fiscal air out of government, just when we need money to repair the damage done by 30 years of Republican ascendancy, are retirement and health assistance for the elderly, how about if we consider euthanasia and means-testing?

One sounds a lot worse than the other, but they really amount to the same thing. The programs should help those who actually need help, not all who would like it.

Few will disagree that an elderly widow with $1 million in the bank, a paid home, ample clothing and furnishing needs to get a check from the government to pay for the remaining necessary expenses -- excluding health care, next on the agenda. Therefore, limiting social security benefits to people without the money to support themselves eminent makes sense and would extend the retirement safety net to the Boomers' children.

Medicare is far trickier. Here the problem is escalating health costs. None of the solutions I've heard, from HillaryCare to ObamaTweaks to McCain's you're-on-your-own, really address the problem, namely that our health care system has a hugely expensive testing and heartbeat-preserving component that is unnecessary and in real, practical terms, useless.

We're spending ourselves to the poorhouse giving people six last months of bedridden misery -- that time over which 80 percent of all medical expenses occur -- and in the process abandoning poor children with decades ahead of them, whose disorder and illness health care ends up costing tenfold what prevention would have.

Unplug us, please!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hear, hear. Don't unplug; just don't bring out those respirators and feeding tubes in the first place. I've seen death, and it's a beautiful thang.

Lucy (aka Angel of Death)

Anonymous said...

The “do not resuscitate” option is already in place for the terminally ill. Or do you mean that we shouldn’t have an option? Who gets to decide? The doctor, lawyer, the rabbi, the priest? Money?

Cecilio Morales said...

Frankly, I didn't map out every little detail of the policy. I would say the principle would be that no life-prolonging treatment, other than to relieve pain, would be extended to anyone who is terminally ill.

Anonymous said...

But doctors use the information they gather during their patient’s dying process to figure out possible future treatment for future patients. The patient is the guinea pig - all in the name of research. The bottom line is money.

Cecilio Morales said...

Precisely. Let's stop paying for that.