I have discovered why there is a war on women, there are more of them. In most countries, developed countries, there are more women than men, only in countries with a positive bias, such as china are there more men than women. world wide the ratio is 1.07 and they live longer so that the disparity increases after age 65, when we start talking about social security we are really talking about providing for single women of advanced age, they are huge consumers of health services and other welfare initiatives.

It is time we tilted the responsibilty for age care back to the families and away from government. it is not good enough that these old folks are parked in a home

Having just gone through this with my dad I'd say that depends. There is no way we could have cared for him in our home. That's great if they're able to care for themselves or both of us don't work, but thank God he had a good place to go where he could get the care he needed. Yeah, they can suck up a lot of resources and having paid into the system for decades and served his country we should take care of him in return.

I agree to some extent, but how do we force eldercare on families?
(China recently relaxed the one child rule, but it's going to be decades before the sexes are about equal again.)

you can't be sure of the standard of care they get

I agree with my fellow Texan. Taking care of an elderly member of the family is almost impossible without a lot of help and support, made more difficult by limited resources and the responsibility of families to meet their own needs especially if BOTH spouses work. Some have more than one elderly to care for.

The burden is already on over burdened families to care for their elderly members and you want to add more Clete? I find that rather crazy to be honest unless you increase resources and options in a big way for elderly care. But yeah if you dump them in a facility and never go back you don't know the care they will get. Most of us have more than one elderly to tend to, and it's a huge challenge to meet all their needs, weekly, let alone daily. Hell it's a challenge maintaining your own life, with children and the lot, let alone trying to help your elderly members. Its an individual, time consuming and at times frustrating challenge to those charged with that kind of HUGE responsibility.

We need more help, NOT LESS!! If anybody deserves MORE help its the elderly, and the people that care for them.

There is going to be many more of them Tal and that is going to take many more trained staff, facilities and you think the budget is groaning now

That's my point Clete the budget is already stretched so now what?

Now what? The elderly need nice pleasant ways to opt out of life if they so choose, just because they are old, not because of excruciating pain or terminal illness. I can say this because I am old and ready any time. I'd like a week's cruise, a shot of whatever my vet put my dog to sleep with, and burial at sea, where I am food for the food chain and coral for the stolen coral. My assets don't go into the medical and drug maws. The next generations don't have even more burden sucked out of their taxes to pay for me.

Is this gruesome, shocking, morbid, unethical? Not in the least. We design babies and manipulate every single part of our lives except for death, because of old religious beliefs. Many groups of the past practiced either eldercide or infanticide out of necessity. Our society has lost all touch, as we struggle to keep everyone alive and to live longer and longer, no matter the cost to peace of mind or our coffers. My viewpoint allows for choice rather than forcing this on anyone. There are tons of us out there.

My favorite joke about this... actually has a grain of truth to it...


Q: Why do men usually die before their wives do.

A: Because they want to.

Well we have snuffed 50 million babies ,so we have that infanticide covered ... Maybe if they had been allowed to live we'd have the population that could care for the elderly.
But now with Obamacare we also have the death panel ......ooops I mean the IPAB ,so I think wacking the elderly aint that far behind ...... forgetting that choice thing .

Tom if you did away with the elderly your medical industry would collapse and so would the need for the ACA, doctors would be cheap, touting for business on every street corner. I'm not ready to go yet dispite these chronic conditions the which doctors keep finding to keep their mates in business but I don't want to be in care, too many nightmare stories, but once the elderly lived among us, now they are hidden and the mad live among us

A committee was established as part of the ACA whose one function was to develop a workable means of paying for nursing home care. They looked at possibilities including a mandatory payroll deduction to establish a fund for eldercare, maybe similar to social security. They came up with---nothing--- and the committee was dissolved quickly.

My mother obtained a reverse mortgage on her home and was able to hire sitters to stay with her for about 3 years and she needed 24 hour care. My poor sister who is an RN and experienced in geraitric care was tasked with finding sitters and scheduling them and checking up on the quality of care, etc. There must have been about 20 sitters coming and going over that 3 years and out of the 20, about 3 were dependable and trustworthy and stayed for more than a few months.

Even if some funds are available, working families have a big chore ahead of them to try and keep their parents out of nursing homes. And if the parent is just living with them and can do a lot for themselves, that situation is guaranteed to change for the worse, as time goes by. Baby boomers coming on and needing care now will probably quadruple the problem.

There are maybe 3 options. Increased govt. funding, requiring folks to buy LTC insurance (yeah, right), or requiring homes to be sold via reverse mortgage type arrangements-even if the more healthy spouse has to live in that mortgaged home. Requiring children to perform the care or pay for the care (whether in the parent's house or in a facility) is totally unrealistic and I believe part of the problem that brought on the Social Security system. That system was designed at a time when it was rare for both spouse to work out of the home.

National Geographic had an issue not long ago with a picture of a baby on the cover with a notation something like- "This baby will live to age 150". That is becoming a realistic possibility according to NG and many others. The most serious problem coming out of that possibility is the exact same problem being discussed here. And there doesn't seem to be anyone addressing either the present or future problem.

My wife and I have LTC insurance which costs more than 10% of our total income. We have paid about $ 70K into it so far for absolutely nothing, will pay possibly 3 or 4 times that amount if we live long enough, and still very possibly never get one nickel back. Try convincing or requiring every citizen to do that. But, if we had purchased a policy when we were much younger (could even have gotten it as a group employee policy and paid a small portion of what we pay now), we would be far better off.

Snuff, whack, infanticide (you forgot Logan's Run?)... I made a good suggestion for choice for old people, and some people get all weird.

smearcase, good response. My parents paid for LTC their entire married lives (what a crock THAT is - good for 2 years of nursing home past what Medicare ends at) and neither one ever used it, wanting to die at home. I was the child at home. I have no regrets. I almost lost my mind just the last few days, when I got no sleep. I'd do it again for my dad (my holy terror mother died quickly, maybe as a favor to me, who knows).

I planned my entire life to be able to be in control of it AND to have no obligations, so I had no kids. Now I demand the right to go when I want. I used to think I had to justify some illness or pain, but no longer. Now I think it's just a right of my age. I've lived and loved and experienced enough for about 2 1/2 cavemen. This 150 year crap is insanity. It's Kurzweil wishing his father could see him do it or something, I forget - he basically said so. Insane, egocentric, selfish - everyone who wants to live forever. As Jerry Seinfeld said, as he bounced his little baby on his lap, 'They are here to replace us.'

I'll give you kudos for the choice. I have a nice rock outcrop picked to visit during my final hike.

I agree with Joypulv. People should be allowed to end their lives when they want to - not only because of terminal illness or other "reasons". Certainly the elderly, but not for younger people.

We have an alloted span, we shouldn't be trying to extend that. It becomes obvious as you grow older that you are a machine and replacement parts are hard to find. Quality of life is important as I keep telling my medical advisers who insist in prescribing medications that either do nothing or have side effects which make quality of life worse. I don't know what happened to that do no harm ethos, I think it was replaced with make more money.

I expect that what I was preposing was that the elderly should be looked after by relatives up to a certain age unless they are intensive care, ie the places in nursing homes are more selective. Not everyone has the money to live in luxury and these ponzi schemes will eventually run out of money because you can't earn enough in a short working life to be out of the work force for longer and you can see the evidence of this in social security which will collapse under the weight of the elderly

That's another option to add to my three, clete. Actually, euthanasia/suicide was another suggested by others along the way. So, five total now?
Your living with relatives while only needing minimal care is a good one and the more it could be used, the better for everybody.
Assuming the oldsters could contribute financially takes it up another notch.
Many seniors in that fairly independent status utilize assisted living facilities, and their money goes to strangers.
Actually, it might even be a way for a senior to help out a son, daught., niece, etc, by paying a fair share of the son's housing costs and possibly some other justifiable costs that would not be counted against the senior, when it came time for the senior to need Medicaid nursing home funding. (The spend down and 5 yr. look back period requirements.)
The son etc would have to have enough space and agreement from his family, and some cooperation from his family and the senior on a daily basis to make it work, which is often easier said than done but when it works it seems like a win-win arrangement, and I personally know of a few instances where it does seem to work well. For many of the seniors who write into AMHD about the difficulties with the in-laws-- definitely not an option.

if you have diffiulty with the inlaws you have to look at yourself first. I know some can be outlaws but many families could do with the extra income at critical times and it makes no sense to leave the elderly in the care of strangers, so called professionals who are only interested in the bottom line, but the elderly shouldn't just be convenient baby sitters either