An American child born today has a actuarial life expectancy of 77.7 years.
An American who reaches age 65 today actuarially has 18.7 years to go.
And that is with a dysfunctional healthcare system, one that supposedly condemns citizens to a pay-up-or-die existence, creating poverty and extending misery throughout the land by denying access to the poor while overpricing treatment for those who can afford it.
The unstated villain, and the driving force behind all proposed healthcare reforms, is our longevity – which drains the unsustainable Social Security and Medicare “trust funds” providing no return to society except our more-expensive-by-the-day continued presence. Why, when Social Security was founded, an American was hoping to make 65 years to score an old age pension check. Today, despite our increasingly unhealthy lifestyle choices, collecting one of those checks is a pretty sure thing – and it’s all indexed for inflation, too!
If Americans do that well with our current inadequate state of medicine, and longevity is counterproductive to our national interests, is there a point anymore in further medical research, improvement of therapies, or expansion of facilities? To what end? Further research, that which may ultimately cure cancers, diabetes, asthma, arthritis, AIDS, Alzheimers or other dread or chronic diseases, is counterproductive if the government’s aim is cost containment. Any new therapies would be disproportionately applied to older or chronically ill Americans, wasted on those having a clear duty to die under the limited resources of our National Healthcare Reformation – a duty eased by government counseling.
For performing our duty, maybe we’ll get another government benefit: a headstone.
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