There's a lot that can be done to lower the amount we spend on the elderly. Something like 50% of health care costs are spent on a small minority of the population in their last year or two of life.
Anecdotally, my grandmother who worked as a state nurse for about 15 years (which is less than I've worked now that I'm in my mid 30's) received a golden pension higher than the average salary in the US along with 100% free health insurance. In the last few years of her life she used probably a million dollars in health services - new hips, massive amounts of brand medication, ear specialists, eye specialists, and finally the last few weeks of life sustaining care in the hospital.
She did not die in poverty. In fact, for the last 30 years of her non-working life, she enjoyed better medical care and a standard of living far better than any of her grandkids who were paying for her.
Agreed. My grandmother was lovingly cared for by my grandfather until he died (he was physically able until the end), but in many ways her health was better in the nursing home for the next several years. For her level of needs, 24/7 professionals with a regular rotation of visiting family was the right arrangement.
That said, the savings which had seemed perfectly sufficient when he'd retired from a big solid American company (pension, etc) were just obliterated by the black swan of American medical costs, and we had to sell the home which had been in our family for generations.
Meanwhile my significant other works in our state government granting public money to help needy elderly people have somewhere to live out the rest of their lives.
The amount of money these places get per individual is fucking staggering, like $15k per month, every month. What does that get you? Like a shitty bed in a shitty room with shitty daily food and 1/10th of a nurse, who, like you said, is paid garbage.
But don't worry, some rich fucker's portfolio is doing great now that the elderly had to sell everything they've ever earned to afford end of life care, instead of letting their family, children, or even the next generation inherit it.
Yup. Elderly care in most countries - including Europe - is a scam designed to keep the poor classes poor. Assuming long-term care is ~3000€ a month and ten years of life expectancy, that's ~360k€, or what most of us made in lifetime savings (remember, here in Europe we got actual pensions, so no 401k needed). However, a family that already has 2, 3 million € in liquid assets? For them, even two or three people in elderly care won't make much of a dent - the interest earned from these assets alone is enough to pay for their care. And for everyone above that it's not even a question.
Now, the worse problem is there is no (ethical) way around the issue. Modern medical care as well as strict workplace safety regulations and the downturn of heavy industry (that caused a lot of people to die of silicosis, asbestosis and whatnot) allows for far longer life times, even with mentioned severe illnesses that would have taken out earlier generations before they had even hit pension age, and there haven't been wars to take out a decent part of the population either (which had been the norm prior to the end of WW2). At the same time, we can't just give poor elderly people a gun and tell them to off themselves out of ethical reasons, and we don't want to pressure them to "look for a way out" on their own either. We also can't rely on women to do the care labor as they did prior to the 70s, for both ethical and economic reasons (we need women in the work force). And we also can't import cheap labor from overseas to fill the gaps in staffing to drive down wages, because we already did that (good luck finding nurses and other care staff in Eastern/South Eastern Europe - all bled dry and burned out!).
How about going to Asian style societies where the caregivers are grandparents or older people? Most people close to retirement (or already retired) don't need as much money since medicare already takes care of them.
Elderly people need the same things as all other people, plus more healthcare. A LOT more. Some studies have shown that over half of a persons total lifetime healthcare expenditures occur in their senior years
Imagine you kept spending the same you do today, but stopped earning income to pay for it. Then on top of that your healthcare spend goes up an order of magnitude. Then imagine this happens to a significant portion of your fellow countrymen in a short time period
Old people often don't use that many resources either at least while they are in good health. Most of the costs are associated with the last year or two of life. SO that expense is already committed to when they born.
End of life care in the last 5 decades is nothing like the previous thousands of years. I have so far had 2 great grandparents live to 100+, 1 great grandparent to 95+, and 2 grandparents to 95+.
All of them did not want medical intervention when their time came. I lived with 2 of the above myself growing up, and one needed dialysis at 93. There was no reason to give them dialysis at that age. It’s brutal for them, the staff, the government spending all this money. Even my grandparent was bewildered at this misplaced priority in society.
I also see many families, especially in traditional ones where the children take care of the parents, spend a ton of their resources on the elderly frequently sacrificing resources that could go to their young. My parents did this, and while I understand they didn’t have a better option for various reasons, but I will not spend a ton of time and energy extending my parents’ lives if it causes me to take away from my kids’. And I wouldn’t want it for myself, obviously.
For now, I hope when the time comes that I have to rely on someone else for basic bodily functions, I will still have the energy (and willpower) to get on a boat and tie a cinderblock to my ankle and go overboard or something.
Or when your grandma or grandpa spend their life savings and are stuck without adequate care and services, then they die much sooner than they normally would.
Old people in the USA are EXTREMELY wealthy in terms of healthcare purchasing power. All retired people have medicare. Many retired people have additional healthcare coverage from their former employers (doesn't exist anymore -- disappeared along with pensions -- but this benefit used to be common). Many retired people have significant savings in addition to medicare and private health insurance.
Most new parents have little to no government assistance, do not have significant expendable income, and have little to no accumulated wealth. Children, of course, are even poorer than their deadbeat parents.
> the extensive and expensive care of their elders.
Granted cognitive decline and other conditions are extremely difficult to manage, however it’s remarkable how easy and cheap a disturbingly large chunk of elder care is. Just someone there to make sure elders take their meds on time, monitor their blood pressure, making sure they’re eating or go to the doctor if anything bothers them etc; all these tasks could be done in-home with family, or minimally trained healthcare workers. We could even pay families and healthcare workers handsomely and we’d still save massive amounts on the outrageous expense in elder quality-of-life and healthcare expenditure we pay because those simple interventions aren’t made.
So what do we do with the sick and poor elderly folks? It provides a benefit for the younger as well in that junior doesn't have to worry about grandma dying of an untreated illness
The thing is, children's medical care as a whole is not relatively expensive. Elderly care is.
This kind of event is super rare. However,it's not nearly so rare to have an older person go through tons of procedures and spend months in the hospital.
Nothing magical, because when people age they become less healthy and able to work/contribute - it is only ethical to offer them the last ~10-20 years of their lives as reward for their hard work. The average age of death in the US is 78
And who pays for the benefits the elderly (or as a matter of fact, the whole society) enjoys? Amenities, welfare, health insurance, etc. - taxpayers, exactly the demographic (before 65 - healthy & able-bodied) FIRE is encouraging to stop working, thus avoid paying income taxes.
Anecdotally, my grandmother who worked as a state nurse for about 15 years (which is less than I've worked now that I'm in my mid 30's) received a golden pension higher than the average salary in the US along with 100% free health insurance. In the last few years of her life she used probably a million dollars in health services - new hips, massive amounts of brand medication, ear specialists, eye specialists, and finally the last few weeks of life sustaining care in the hospital.
She did not die in poverty. In fact, for the last 30 years of her non-working life, she enjoyed better medical care and a standard of living far better than any of her grandkids who were paying for her.
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