For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.
Bloggers have made much of the fact that we've managed to translate all our money into such poor results, but such bloggers obviously miss the point. The biggest financial problem looming before this country is the problem of unfunded liabilities like social security. For this, our august and secretive government has a plan: gradually erode life expectancies. The dead don't cost much to care for. If more people had access to high quality health care, we'd just have to pay for them for longer.
When Henny Youngman quipped, "I found out I have all the money that I'll ever need. If I die tomorrow," he probably never thought that such a philosophy would become the basis for a government program.
This is not a joke. This is how the age for receiving benefits from the first government pension (Germany) was determined:
ReplyDelete"What is the average age that people die at?"
"Sixty-Five"
"Fine, government employees will be eligible for pension benefits at age sixty-five."
And guess what? Pensions benefits have typically been starting at age sixty-five ever since.
A number of years back The Vancouver Sun did a front page lead article on pensions - the paraphrased account above was the start of the article.
It's not the health care system that's the biggest problem. It's individuals who don't care enough about themselves to live a healthy life. We need to get tough on this, because the cost of health care is going to bankrupt our country.
ReplyDelete