by Ruby Steele
By mid-year, it will become clear to the First Lady and to the nation that universal health care for all Americans will not be possible in this century.
By year's end, it will be clear to all of us that Social Security, as we have known it, will not exist in the next century.
There are, in fact, far too many Americans 65 and older who are already retired, living on Social Security and their savings who will, before they die, tap out the health care budget for emergency services, life-prolonging treatments, therapy, nursing and intensive care.
About 15 years behind that generation, expecting to live an average life expectancy of 92 years, are the Baby Boomers. The drug and lifestyle experimenters who, in spite of cleaning up unhealthy habits since the '70s, are youth- and beauty-driven, and are more likely to tax the health system with cosmetic or "quality of health-life" services, as well as basic life supports.
By the end of the first decade of the new century, the combination of people still taxing the system, but who are marginally productive, will out-number the full-time working adult citizenry 3-to-1. Add to that children, the disabled and the institutionalized, and every American male and female capable of full-time employment, will shoulder the tax infrastructure burden for themselves and five other Americans.
Of course, this is a situation no nation can long endure.
And because President Clinton has squared his jaw and attacked the national budget, the national debt and the rising costs of health care, all the facts and actuaries and graphic projections that Mr. Perot refers to as the crazy aunt in the attic will be pulled out of hiding and thrown onto the national table.
This nation will have to decide what to do with the mounting tide of humans who will age and die slowly, juxtaposed to a national debt that will not be easily retired, and Social Security and health-care systems that cannot cope with the numbers it soon will have to service.
It already has been introduced, via the media, that the baby boomers will not have the privilege of retirement, but will have to work until death because Social Security will be depleted, spent on those already 65 and older before the biggest wave of boomers hits retirement age. As a nation we will a opportunity to see how Japan and China deal with their aging populations already nearing crisis level proportions.
Faced with just these facts, following Modest Solution will be put before the nation for consideration within four years:
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A Kevorkian attitude of state-assisted euthanasia will become the nobler path of the aging and a far, far better thing than any senior has ever done for the generations that are to follow.
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Once a citizen reaches age 65, they are on their own. No Social Security. No health care beyond limited emergency services. No human or social service safety nets.
So long as a person aged 65 or older can fend for him- or herself via productive employment or by hustling on the streets, and so long as they do not require emergency health services beyond what government actuaries have established as an affordable recovery period of 20 days ; and so long as they do not require services of the state; they will remain fully independent citizens with full and equal rights - but minimal services - as defined by the Constitution.
However, should they require emergency services or health care, shelter, food or assistance beyond the actuarial 20 days, they shall be given the following choices by the state:
- Warehousing - Much like Native Americans kept long houses with bedding spaces, a central fire and eating place, those 65 and older who are in need of emergency or continuing services beyond the state-authorized 20 days, will be housed in such lodges in communities throughout the country until they are able to return to work or to the streets, or until they die.
This communal existence, however, will not be entirely spartan. There will be communal television, hand crafts, art, physical and psychological therapy and landscaped grounds to enjoy. But it will be a confined existence with limited privacy. Only couples who agree to individual sterilization may share quarters, as the state cannot afford to risk late life pregnancies.
- The Final Option - a one-week, state-paid vacation to the hospice of your choice located anywhere within the 50 states and complete pleasure accommodations offered by the state-sponsored hospice; final counseling and spiritual preparations; choice of state-approved oral or injection euthanasia; choice of funerals and manner of handling the remains and notification of family and extended family members up to 50 in number.
A national education campaign will inform all citizens from ages 3 to 65 of the concerns and the solutions involved with this plan, which the nation expects to enforce for 30 years, or until the boomers have passed and the numbers of aging citizens reaches a manageable level allowing the cutoff point to be raised to 70 years of age or more, depending upon a vote of the nation in accordance with what it can afford. Of course immigration, disease and economic conditions will have to be accounted for and assessed before the nations could re-evaluate or modify this long-term Modest Solution once it is set in place.
It could be expected that early education will bring about better chances of this plan succeeding, and better chances that the nation will be in a position to control its aging population in the future. We already have observed and learned from successful national education campaigns against smoking, alcohol and drug use, and have seen a reduction in the consumption of these products.
If a noble and patriotic spin can be put on this pill to sweeten it for the boomers, we might - given inventive advertising and full-blown, mixed-media persuasions - expect the state's Modest Solution to be accepted much like a draft when the country is at war. A Kevorkian attitude of state-assisted euthanasia will become the nobler path of the aging and a far, far better thing than any senior has ever done before for the generations that are to follow.
Ms. Steele lives in Seattle and is a freelance writer of modest income who is approaching 50 years of age, with nearly zero savings or Social Security.
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Contents on this page were published in the April, 1993 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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Copyright © 1993 WFP Collective, Inc.