Much weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth is taking place over the troublesome issue of Social Security payouts. Baby Boomers are afraid that they'll never receive them, and every generation that follows them is afraid that they will. It is a topic that is divisive, vituperative, and without any reason to carry the weight that it does.
Thanks to the state of medical care in the U.S., we Baby Boomers are dropping like flies. Even those who make a reasonable income and have some form of health insurance are faced with soaring deductibles and expensive prescription costs, which make their friendly family physician more of a luxury and less of a preventative measure every year. And those are the lucky ones--many of us work for employers who can no longer afford to offer health insurance, and yet because we work, we aren't eligible for public health programs. (Let's not even begin to talk about dental work.)
Medicare is years ahead for most of my generation, and that program too is standing on shaky ground. By the time we are eligible for it, it will be such a fragile structure that the sheer weight of boomer medical cases will send it crashing into oblivion.
So Generations X, Y, Z and Less than Zero, cheer up. Thanks to the lack of a sane health care system in our country, the number of Boomers who will be alive and well by the time they're ready for Social Security will be much smaller than the hordes that haunt your worst nightmares.
Who says there's no method to the Republican madness? And with a health system like ours, who needs to worry about Soylent Green?
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