THE ‘SOLUTION’ TO OUR DEMOGRAPHIC PROBLEM

 

By Bill Dunn

 

 

A huge portion of the current federal budget—and the majority of future financial promises, estimated at over $100 trillion—is spent solely on senior citizens. Social Security, Medicare, prescription drugs, nursing homes, and subsidized elderly housing are sucking our nation dry.

 

The United States will go bankrupt if we continue on the present path of massive deficit spending to pay for all these entitlements. It is imperative that we curb these runaway costs. What better way to achieve that goal than to ration health care services and offer mandatory “end-of-life” counseling sessions? (Or as that cheeky former governor of Alaska calls them, “death panels.”)

 

Our messianic young president has an ambitious plan to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Although he declares his goal is to improve medical services and reduce costs, we all know—and even he knows—that’s a silly claim.

 

Try to name one instance in U.S. history when government involvement has improved efficiency and reduced cost. Think of: Katrina and FEMA, public education, urban renewal, the military’s $700 toilet seat, the Post Office, Amtrak, or the recent clunker of a government program, Cash for Clunkers. When this bureaucratic beauty was created recently, the funding was suppose to last for four months. Instead, it ran out in one week. Oops, miscalculated by a factor of sixteen—par for the course. And even after more money was thrown at the Clunkers program, car dealers are still on the verge of bankruptcy because they have no idea when they’ll receive the money they're owed from Washington. Truly a textbook example of inefficiency and waste.

 

It’s simply a foregone conclusion that whenever a government agency administers a particular program, it is sure to be bloated with bureaucratic inefficiencies and sky-rocketing costs. But in the case of health care, that is not a problem; that is the answer!

 

What better way to, um, pardon the expression, “cull the herd,” than to have layers upon layers of unionized government employees make the final decision on whether Grandma qualifies for dialysis treatment, or whether Grandpa gets approved for much-needed heart bypass surgery? By the time a decision is reached, it will be two months after the funeral.

 

Now if you think this is a bit cold-hearted, don’t forget, back in 1973 we switched from a “sanctity of life” standard to a “quality of life” standard. If it is acceptable to exterminate a baby because he or she might live in poverty, what’s the big deal about passing judgment on the circumstances at the other end of life’s spectrum? Being old and feeble and in pain, while sitting on a couch every day watching Jerry Springer and constantly complaining, doesn’t sound like a very high “quality of life” to me.

 

If someone has already lived six or seven decades, he or she has had a good run. That’s enough. Maybe it’s time to step aside and stop wasting valuable resources that could be better used by young and healthy citizens.

 

Certainly there are other methods of adjusting a society’s demographics. Some of these methods were tried in the mid-20th century. But I suspect rail cars, barbed wire-encircled camps, gas chambers, and crematoriums are a bit heavy-handed, even by Teutonic standards. Various groups, such as AARP and the ACLU, probably would raise a fuss.

 

So we have to be much more subtle nowadays, but equally as effective in the long run. Which is why government-managed health care—in the name of fairness, of course—is a perfect solution. One might even say the Final Solution.

 

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(Note: Based on some emails I received since this appeared in the newspaper, it must not be clear that this is SATIRE. I am not proposing death camps for Grandma. This is a warning of what might happen if we ignore the "sanctity of life" standard and focus only on the "quality of life" standard.)