We’re Getting Old, but We’re Not Doing Anything About It

Susan Jacoby writes about the failure to address the impact of an aging population:

Like climate change, the aging of America demands serious reconsideration of the way we live. Confronting the issue and its many implications, from Medicare’s failure to cover long-term care to the ethics of physician-assisted dying, requires what seems to be the most difficult task for human beings — thinking about the future...

In certain respects, the crisis is already upon us. A study published this year by Gallup and West Health, a research organization dedicated to lowering health care costs, showed that people over 65 had withdrawn an estimated $22 billion from long-term savings accounts in the previous year to pay for health expenses Medicare didn’t cover. A recently published article in The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society underscores the sobering likelihood that one out of seven 65-year-olds today can expect to be disabled for at least five years before death. The largest increase in the disabled population is projected to occur in the 2030s.

Although there has been considerable talk about health care during the Democratic presidential debates, nearly all of the focus has been on the young with inadequate insurance coverage. That Medicare as we now know it fails to work for many retirees, leaving them in danger of going bankrupt, gets short shrift....

First, it is vital to address the disturbing human realities behind the statistics. An aging society affects everyone, but it affects women most because of their greater longevity. How can we continue to count on women to provide two-thirds of unpaid caregiving? I gnash my teeth every time I encounter one of those ubiquitous television ads for a business called “A Place for Mom,” which provides much-needed service by helping people find long-term care for parents. It’s not called “A Place for Dad” for a very good reason. We assume that Mom (or Daughter) is caring for Dad at home.

Second, public programs and private companies need to cooperate to provide opportunities for old people who want to and are perfectly able to go on working. That’s an important objective of AARP, which held town halls on aging in Iowa last summer. Most candidates attended at least one of the meetings, but the discussions received little national publicity.

Third, a healthier attitude toward aging also means examining moral issues. Physician-assisted suicide, for example, is the source of a fierce ethical debate that matters greatly to anyone who can imagine growing old. Questions about the end of life, like those about abortion, should be posed in every national forum. According to a Gallup poll conducted last year, 72 percent of Americans agree that doctors should be allowed to help end a patient’s life painlessly if there is no hope of a cure and the medical assistance is requested by patients and their families. The support drops to 65 percent if the phrase “doctor-assisted suicide” is used instead of “end a patient’s life” — yet another case of the American preference for euphemism.

We’re Getting Old, but We’re Not Doing Anything About It