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EDITORIAL: Boomers big in health care debate

July 17, 2009

Seldom referenced in most conversation about the woes of our health care "crisis" are those who could be without health care should current entitlements dry up someday.

As baby boomers reach retirement age and older, the strain on Medicaid and Medicare along with Social Security has been on the minds of Congress for several years, and it is surely motivation for some of the calls for huge tax increases, even if the words spoken in support of those increases are aimed at needs more immediate. Where we might be 10 years from now should make us all nervous.

Getting government into the health care business - call it a "public option" or socialized medicine, depending upon your political persuasion - is the first step toward eventually replacing Medicaid and Medicare and providing full coverage for all. When that happens, government will make even more decisions about how its money is spent on health care; and, yes, they will be life and death decisions that are currently being made between doctors and patients and their families. When to "pull the plug" would be based as much or more on economics as on medical advice and personal desires.

Those are the tough decisions to which the cautious in this debate keep referring. Most of us would like to avoid letting some government regulation be a part of such decisions.

Still, even if we find a way to provide health care to the millions who currently can't afford it, haven't sought help already available, or are illegal immigrants, there remains the imminent load on the current system when baby boomers, those of us born between 1946 and 1965, begin to need the health care always required late in life. There are fewer of our children than there are of us. The load they bear will be heavy.

What to do about this problem is a mission currently being addressed in a body severly divided by philosophy. As depicted in the cartoon above, some believe our leaders to be in the pocket of the powerful lobby of the health insurance industry. But that is not the only special interest group with a legitimate stake in this issue. Include lawyers and doctors and small businesses, who stand to pay the most toward any government program.

Indeed, some solution must come along. We would hope that compromise is available, and that a cautious and limited involvement of government in the solution is forthcoming.

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