Healthcare in America and eating our young

I just read a post on the blog Duck’s Pond about how the crisis in health care in the U.S. will lead to some sticky problems for baby boomers. It’s an interesting take because it’s not the straightforward social-security-is-going-bust-so-baby-boomers-are-screwed argument.

It says more that a lack of health care in the growing Hispanic population in the U.S. means that when push comes to shove down the line, Hispanics won’t be able to shoulder the burden of their own health care costs and retired baby boomers’ costs too.

It’s definitely something to noodle on.

Why are Americans behaving like they’re part of a “Wild Kingdom” (Discovery Channel) episode and devouring their young? Are we in a state of “psychological stress?” At least that’s one of the explanation that experts give to explain why animals in the wild chomp down their newbies. I know this sounds kind of gory and just generally whack, but a couple of eye popping studies have just come out which have made me reflect on how this country is treating (or cannibalizing) its next generation.

Consider the newly released survey, conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that paints a dismal picture of health care among Hispanics in the United States.

According to the study, an estimated 25 percent of Hispanics in the United States don’t have a regular health care provider to treat their medical needs.

The post goes on to ask this provocative question:

So riddle me this? If (as according to the Pew study), Hispanics are more than twice as likely to lack a regular health care provider. And if in 30 years they will they will be the proverbial shoulder on which the U.S. elderly population stands (or by then slumps). How can we expect Hispanics to be healthy enough themselves to carry out the enormous burden of caring for an aging baby boomer population? The short answer: we can’t. Already burdened by a Social Security system that will have failed, a deficit that will have to be repaid and just the sheer math of fewer taxpaying folks trying to support a vastly larger elderly population – the task could prove impossible.
–Duck’s Pond

Check out the site for the full post. It’s definitely food for thought.

Source
Eating our Young, Duck’s Pond