Census Bureau: World's 65 and Older Population Will Triple by 2050

Thanks for your revealing article. I am responding to the comment left by Ken of WI.

I am over fifty and after years on the land or at sea I am a little the worse for wear. I am gradually requiring more and more health care as life goes on. Slowly, as the years accrue, I wonder at the logic of keeping us older people alive.

Why should I expect the tax imposed on young families be spent keeping me alive? What have I done to deserve that privilege?

I believe the healthcare profession is a massive scam. Any industry that regulates the uptake of newcomers in order to enable it to charge exorbitant fees for it's services, while simultaneously condemning and lobbing for the banning of any alternate therapies should no be revered but held in contempt by the community.

When I was a child people would get old, become frail and in the care and company of their families, die. They would leave their offspring a nest egg to help them on their way in life. Now, in the modern world, when people get old and frail, the health care profession contemptuously offers them a bit more mobility for a few more years, but as soon as the cash runs out, so does the life.

The health care professionals who left the industry because their earnings have been capped, to something like 4 times the income of most of their patients, were obviously there for all the wrong reasons in the first place, I say to them "Good Riddance."

The majority of unhealthy older people are a complete waste of time and a total pain in the butt. They are happy to sponge off the future and security of their offspring to gain a few more years, of what?

Talking complete and utter drivel and attempting to stymy the efforts of anyone they don't understand on the basis of ignorance and self pity. I am not the slightest bit surprised that the youth of today are running around university campuses blowing people away.

I suggest the older people in the community should decline heath care at a time in their lives when the cost to maintain their miserable existence for a couple of years could cure a young person of an otherwise life-long agonising condition.

Maybe we could have a system in place where the population would rate a person by giving them votes throughout their lives. Health care would then be granted by the community on the basis of their perceived value to society.

Geoff Bunker 11:38AM July 15, 2009