[Ifroham4]

Or the NRA, the Arab lobby, the Mexican lobby, the Cuban lobby, NEMLA..... I recently listened to the pair of these idiots M&W on some radio and whatever they said sounded so funny and conspiratorial.....

[Peptobismol]

AARP. I HATE those people.

[Ifroham4]

AARP. I HATE those people.

You would hate living in Israel. LOL. We have pensioners parties

[NeroASERCH]

It's not the people. Well sort of it is. I'm a heretic with a real axe to grind on the so called "Greatest Generation". Screw them, I hate them and AARP is their force ensuring that the Federal government spends 10x more percapita on old people who generally already have their own health care anyway, than on children who don't. Because children don't vote and don't have a lobby so tough darts on them they say. Greatest Generation my . Greatest Generation of freeloading spongers who voted themselves the most gigantic bag of free stuff in the history of earth.

[HedgeYourBets]

It's not the people. Well sort of it is. I'm a heretic with a real axe to grind on the so called "Greatest Generation". Screw them, I hate them and AARP is their force ensuring that the Federal government spends 10x more percapita on old people who generally already have their own health care anyway, than on children who don't. Because children don't vote and don't have a lobby so tough darts on them they say. Greatest Generation my . Greatest Generation of freeloading spongers who voted themselves the most gigantic bag of free stuff in the history of earth.

Well there are a lot of issues in there, and I don't think most if any of them have something to do with a particular generation. Would you say baby boomers have less of this self entitlement? Gen X? Gen what-ever?

So the crux of the matter:

1. Sociologically, generally, the ways families were 200-300 years ago even in the West, have changed very drastically. No longer are children taking care of their parents, in their own house, with their own resources. The traditional communities are actually faltering today as well, the way all communities were faltering just a few hundred years ago. Generational "roles" have changed, comparably to the way gender roles have drastically changed after suffrage. Not all of us can be diligent Torah scholars assuming that our wives happily tend our businesses and our grandparents raise the kids... although there is a minority in say the US that do exactly that.

2. People are living a lot longer. The average life span pretty much doubled since the industrial revolution. Tripled if you break out some particular communities world wide.

3. That said, modern diets, work environments, etc., are not very given to healthy life styles hence contribute to retirement age problems.

4. Not to propagate a conspiracy theory, but Medicine (as in big Pharma) is into permanent treatment, of "chronic diseases", and not actually curing squat.

[Lillie_Steins]

no it's nonsense straight up and down. They are the first and as well as we can predict, the ONLY generation to neither take care of their own parents nor their own children. They invented the institutionalized nursing home for their parents and they cut their own children loose. They voted themselves massive tax breaks and benefits programs such as tax deductions, SSI, VA loans, the GI bill, Medicare, Medicaid extensions, huge pension programs. They are the first and probably only generation that expected the rest of us to pay for their early retirements at age 55 where they could float off in their bass boats and golf carts to a life style that practically requires extensive and expensive travel.

We will be paying their bills and ours for decades. We're the ones who've been saddled with debt, student loans, out children's student loans, SSI and payroll deductions and a gutting of the very unions they help set up and for which we don't get any benefit of. We're the ones paying the Federal bill to underwrite their health care costs & our own costs, while millions of children, their grand children have nothing. They're the whiners and complainers every time we talk about having them pay for one thing more. They're greedy ingrate bastards.

Greatest Scam Generation. Con Men all of them. I'm sick of them. I'll be working at age 75 to pay for the last few years of them who retired 30 years earlier. Screw them. But talk about tweaking Medicare or SSI and all of a sudden they pull some bogus social contract out of their butts.

[tgs]

Well there are a few issues with your generalizations.

1. "They". In their days, i.e., when they were the political majority in terms of age, they had as many disagreements among themselves as we do our days. As our Children will have amongst themselves.

2. America became an economic powerhouse after WW1. The Depression, however, presented an opportunity, for the socialist minded of the day, to use that affluence and long term industrial capability to create a [relatively] heavy social net. I'm against the whole thing. It's against individual prerogatives, it destabilizes an economic market tremendously, and creates opportunity for corruption all over the place. But that has nothing to do with a given generation. It just happened to land there at that time. In other places it happened differently. There a cyclical economic thing happening as well, IIRC.

[Peptobismol]

No that's simply not the case. When done right at home care is cheaper, gentler and more humane. But that generation was always embarrassed by their parents and irritated by their children. In fact people live longer, well not really, more people reach a given age. But at any rate people live longer not better. That generation instilled a belief that survival at any cost, no matter what was the goal. Today in the US 80-90% of the total health care one consumes in their whole life is consumed in the last year of life.

That's desperate and sad, selfish and pathetic. And it's bankrupting us all.

[PhillipHer]

On this both of you guys seem to be right, it's a no win situation.

Thats said, lets discuss the oil lobby. Any one has a list of the Saudi bought ex foggy bottom employees?

[MannoFr]

"When done right at home care is cheaper, gentler and more humane."

Severe dementia due to Alzheimers coupled with other physical problems can often require 24/7 awake, fully-dressed caregivers ready to respond.

How much elder care have you personally done under what circumstances? Paying a nursing service is often comparable to paying nursing home care, and the nursing home has equipment and resources rarely available in-home. I've managed both types of care as my parents aged, as appropriate to their situation.

In-home care was appropriate to my fathers medical problems, and he was well-off enough to cover nursing assistants. He was organized and had a living will/medical POA, etc. In my mothers case, she preferred assisted living, which preserved her location near other relatives. When she went downhill it required nursing home-level care. The transition was easy because the facility she lived at provided both.

The DIY option often destroys marriages, as when the wage earner is out working their spouse it trapped with a not-sane. demanding old person who cannot help themselves. If you have a docile, semi-functional easy-to-care-for elder count your blessings, but don't generalize.

(..I meant) At home hospice care. Been there done that. Twice. Much better than the alternatives. Once for CNS lymphoma and once for Alzheimers. I figure that for the vast majority of people hospice is the only humane choice.