Middle Aged Sickos
by digby
It’s a good thing we don’t have rationing like all those horrible European countries or people wouldn’t be able to get health care when they need it:
Americans are struggling to pay for healthcare in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months, according to a survey released on Monday.
Baby boomers — the generation born between 1946 and 1964 — had the most trouble and were the most likely to put off medical treatments or services, said researchers at Center for Healthcare Improvement, part of the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters.
[…]
They found 40 percent of all households planned to postpone care in the coming three months, with about 15 percent planning to put off routine doctor visits.
People born before 1946 were the least likely to delay care, probably because most can take part in Medicare, the federal health insurance plan for the elderly, the researchers found.
Baby Boomers were four times more likely than seniors to have trouble paying for healthcare, according to the report.
People born after 1984 were also unlikely to put off care, probably because they are too young to need much medical attention, the researchers said.
Income was also a big factor — homes where people made less than $50,000 a year were three times as likely to say they had trouble paying for medical bills as homes with combined incomes of $100,000 or more.
“It is important for healthcare providers, employers and policymakers to consider how the economy and healthcare policies affect demographic segments differently,” Pickens said in a statement.
This is not good. Check out the demographic segments (add 9 years to each one) and consider what the political implications are:
I suppose it’s possible to put off health care reform for 15 more years or so and hope that all us whining boomers will go into medicare and shut the hell up. But the problem is that medicare really is going to go broke if the whole system isn’t reformed. Nobody wants to see the baby boomer cohort retire and decide to devote itself to politics do they? I didn’t think so.
The country cannot ignore the fact that this huge group is getting older and sicker and unless it’s decided to kill us all, health care costs are going to be a dominant discussion for a long time to come. There are too many of us to ignore. It’s got to be now.
Nothing could be more irrational than to not have decent health care for people who are still working but getting older and needing more access to a doctor. It’s insane to have that population at risk. The costs to the economy in the long run are going to be much, much higher if people my age can’t maintain their health.
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