A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

by Bruce Cannon Gibney

Whether or not public medical costs are driven by private improvidence, any attempt to interpose reason gets ugly. Boomers of all parties melt down over the same basic issue—rationing—whether costumed as “death panels,” inequity, whatever. Of course, in a finite world all resources are rationed. Perhaps if the Boomers had subsidized medical education, there would be more and cheaper gerontologists; if they had generously funded the National Institutes of Health, better medicines; if their neoliberal doctrine had permitted negotiations with drug companies, cheaper therapies. But they did not. Anyway, Medicare itself is rationing, one that discriminates based on age—over sixty-five, the government will help, under sixty-five and nondisabled, your ration is usually zero.50 What kind of medical care should the public provide to seniors and others? Already, 5 percent of health-care users consume almost 50 percent of health-care resources, and a plurality of these are poor or elderly—i.e., beneficiaries of public programs.51 The public is entitled to ask whether (a) it wants to spend this money, or (b) the money can be better spent improving the welfare of a vastly broader and more productive population. But a tedious combination of sentimentalism, anti-empiricism, and self-interest prevents this dialogue.