What if Everybody Lived Ten Years Longer?
“We imagined that a pill emerged in 2012 that could increase life expectancy for every 50-plus American by 10 years,” says Dana Goldman, a former Rand director and the current director of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy at USC. “Then we ran the numbers to see what would happen.”
By 2028, annual Medicare expenditures alone would more than double relative to current levels, reaching $1 trillion. They’d double again to $2 trillion by 2050 and top out at $3 trillion in 2080. Total expenditures — including Social Security and disability — would be $10 trillion by that final year.
Full article on how to live 100 years.
The moral of this story is: it’s not in the financial self interest of the federal government to have us live longer. Now, who do you want to be in charge of you health care?
This is all very sobering.
Federal govt. policy wonks figured this out long ago and their answer to the problem is to put a moratorium on life extending medical care, regulate access to such medical technologies, tax medical devices, reduce reimbursements to most utilized specialists (cardiologists and oncologists) by the elderly and shift emphasis from “sick” care to “preventive” care. Viola!–Obamacare
Death panels?
In economics there is a saying… “if you want to promote an activity — subsidize it. If you want to discourage an activity — tax it.”
So what if there were a pill (or for lack of a better term maybe a breathing treatment) that would reduce longevity, thus saving the government money on health care. Should the government tax it? Or would fiscal prudence suggest government should subsidize it?
Of course federal and state governments have taxed tobacco products for some time. One has to wonder whether it’s to increase longevity or increase near-term tax revenues.
This scares me. Imagine the endless possibilities for a whole new level of corruption and greed. On the other hand, you can’t buy medication if you’re dead.