A Tsunami of Seniors: The Crisis Begins In 2026 When The First Baby Boomers Turn 80
From personal experience I can tell you that aging baby boomers are going to transform America by creating a senior housing shortage and health care crisis of such epic proportions that it will affect everyone regardless of age.
Here is just a small sample of what you can expect, and it is not pretty.
My mother resides in South Florida, which is flooded with senior citizens of her generation born in the 1920s who, because of advances in medicine and drugs, are living longer.
She is almost 87 and due to a stroke currently lives in a nursing home. Recently she was rushed to the hospital with some internal bleeding.
In the emergency room I was appalled to see corridors literally lined with senior citizens lying on gurneys who, like my mother, were waiting to be seen or had been seen, and now were crowding the halls waiting to be admitted into the hospital.
After arriving by ambulance at 7 a.m., my mother spent the next 12 hours waiting in the emergency room. Due to a hospital-room shortage, it was 7 p.m. before a room was finally available.
What surprised me was when I asked the nurse if this was a typical day and she said, “Yes.” Then I asked her if we could go to another nearby hospital. She said, “They are all like this.”
During the 12 hours when I was rushing in and out, I noticed that the large, brightly painted pediatrics emergency area was completely empty the entire time, except for one little boy with his arm in a sling who was promptly treated.
So you know where I am going with this.
A tsunami of old people is coming ashore — not just in Florida, but everywhere — and our nation is woefully unprepared.
If we were starting to prepare, you would be seeing new nursing homes, assisted living facilities, hospitals dedicated to elders, adult day-care centers, and senior walk-in clinics popping up by the hundreds or even thousands across the nation.
Obviously this is not happening, so instead prepare yourself for a crisis of over 70 million boomer seniors living into their 80s, 90s and even 100s without the facilities or the skilled manpower available to house or care for us.
And just like Dychtwald’s high school classes, baby boomers will be forced to age “in shifts.”
Having seen the future up close and personal with our remaining three 1920s-era parents (my 1922-born father-in-law is 90 and my 1923-born mother-in-law is 89), here is my plan for aging.
At a ripe old age, immediately upon crossing the last item off my “bucket list,” I will die peacefully at home, in my sleep.
Now, my end of life plan sounds nearly perfect until my husband interrupts asking, “How do you make God laugh?” The answer is, “Tell Him your plans.”
My 87-year-old mother who, upon turning 80 said, “80 is the new 70.”
Related at PJ Lifestyle:
Dissecting Baby Boomer Liberalism Like a Frog in Science Class
An interesting essay, and it discusses things I’ve been thinking about since the author and I are of an age, and seem to have been experiencing the same things with parents. Unfortunately, my family had to watch and deal with my father’s slow deterioration of years due to a stroke and finally his death, and other aged relatives struggling with old age and illness. I’m more and more coming the thought that, perhaps, it would be best to spare my children the same agonizing struggles for my care – Medicare and the final indignity of Medicaid – and finish myself off by a suitable age (85?) with some shred of dignity intact.
Larry:
Regarding your last line, you need to re-read the last line of the essay.
“How to you make God laugh?… Tell him your plans.”
Myra: Agreed, but if I come to the point where I can no longer take care of myself, and I need assistance for even the most mundane of human tasks, such as defecation, then I think I’ll know it’s time to remove myself. If God chooses to laugh at that point…well, He’s the Lord, He gets to laugh when and if He chooses. I’ll know that I did what I could to spare my children the pain of watching me go slowly down into decrepitude and bitterness.
What you are discussing is a great moral question. The question also applies to people of any age who have severe disabilities or injuries. This issue is way to heavy for this comment block at this time. But I can tell you this, my mother at 87 and my in-laws at 89 and 90 are always asking, “Why am I still here?” It is always a very difficult question to answer. I always answer, “It is because you are loved by so many and the Lord is not ready to take you yet.”
Not my experience. My aged parents and parents-in-law are all convinced it’s not their time… and it never will be. “God still has more for me to do” is what they say.
Again, agreed on both the moral question and the comment block not being the place for the conversation. But thanks for the discussion!
and, and, and……. we don’t know what else to do……….
No worries, this is what the death panels were for.
Seriously though… The new hospitals as and “health centers” here in NJ are going up faster than I can keep track of them, to the point where I’ve been wondering if they’re preparing for some hideous pandemic known only to them. The interesting thing is these behemoth medical centers all advertise “luxurious private rooms,” these rooms all have hookups for two or three beds each.
Oh yeah, Uncle Sam knows what’s coming. Unfortunately the democrats are the ones watching the store right now.
You have identified a problem. One of the results is going to be death by neglect, or as in the case of Holland, death on purpose via an overdose of drugs
Obama Retirement Facilities.
Our loving kids will repay us in kind.
How’s that work for you?
Since 1970 (RVW), we have aborted something like 86 million babies in the US.
Somebody is going to wake up one morning and do a huge facepalm when they realize that the Jewels of their Age never made it to launch.
Y’know, I’mna sensing some profitable opportunities for off-shore’d senior care in less expensive environments. I keep kidding my daughter that instead of a nursing home it’d be cheaper to warehouse my butt on a long term basis in a Marriott Residence Inn and have an LPN drop by to make sure I’m still on my meds once or twice a week. Said Residence Inn could easily be in Costa Rica, Panama, etc… Better yet, have the LPN on staff and include in the room charge.
In the coming collapse of the vacation industry under Obama it will behoove hotels to re-imagine their-selves…
As a sidebar to this discussion, I recommend this movie. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1412386/ Not earthshaking, just charming, and my husband I (boomers both) enjoyed it.
Not A very comfortable warehouse,Any children? Yes one.He’s divorced and has a room downtown.
Don’t worry about getting old and sick. Obama plans to kill you off with his IPAB rationing board. When (maybe if) you are rushed to a hospital, you will be told: no more care, no more life saving intervention because your’re not worth it. Its a two-fer. They save on medicare and social security. Dead people don’t consume resources.
Good point. However the reason there is not a deluge of new personal care and assisted living: The COST – which is all private pay, unless you bought long-term care insurance. $3K – 5K a month. That’s today. Do you have that to spare? Few boomers even have enough to pay today’s mortgage. 401Ks kaput. No savings. Forget about paying for 10 years of assisted living.
My advice: try to have enough to stay in your own home no matter what. Get someone to move in who is hopefully going to help.
My question about long-term care insurance is this: how can one guarantee that the insurance company will be solvent when one needs the benefits?
David L. Smith of GenevaBusiness joins us for our monthly discussion on economics, finance and politics. This month we cover the fudging of the Basel III accords, the state of the Swiss central bank and other central banks around the world in 2013, the gun control debate in America and much more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEvDAlNFy8Y
We need effective anti-aging medicine such as SENS and genetically engineered stem-cell regeneration. Unfortunately, the development of such as not received the attention that it should.
A lot of those Boomers are liberal, middle-aged hippies who aborted their babies when they were young, waiting for “Mr. Perfect” to come along and knock them up with the perfect designer baby. But they waited too long, and by the time they hit 40 it was too late. Now they’re old and all alone, wondering who’s going to look after them in their dotage. Serves them right!
Yep, if all those babies aborted after Roe v. Wade had instead grown up to be productive working stiffs, social security would still be a solvent program.
Myra Adams — I remember you. You’re the one who kept telling us only Romney could beat Obama and trashing everybody else non-stop, especially Palin.
How did that work out? Care to apologize?
Palin did not run in 2012 in case you forgot. Romney won 60 million votes how many do you think Palin would have received? Obama set out to “kill Romney” and he succeeded with the help of the media.
Please inform why I need to apologize?
My daughter laughed when I told her that I want to find a place big enough to set up small houses for myself and four or five friends and family members of my age group so we can watch out for each other and share expenses for things like outside help, etc. It could easily extend the time that we can live mostly on our own without burdening our kids. Once I explained that part my daughter thought it was a great idea!
Part of the Obamacare plan is to ensure that Boomers don’t reach 80. Or even 65, for that matter. Far too many in that so-called “protected” age group are being thrown out of jobs, their retirement savings and home equity slashed to a mere fraction of what they needed, rendered uninsured, and because of a lifetime of health history, uninsurable. The Boomers are the targeted group of citizens that have to be eliminated from the equation in the greatest numbers, at the least cost to the system, and as quickly as possible. Too young to qualify for Medicare, too old to be employable, too many illnesses to be good risks, too much accumulated wealth to pass any means testing, Boomers are in the biggest donut hole ever conceived by the evil mind of man, except it has not been unintentional. Any Boomer of modest means is SOL. Only the well-heeled Boomers, in Congress, for instance, or Hollywood, or the losers who never tried to amount to anything anyway, will survive the Democrats’ final solution. The rest should start shopping for their family plots and making their final arrangements.
Damn.
Just damn.
Agreed. For a more through discussion, see Ch. 13 – Age Based Medicine and End of Life Healthcare of Dr. Rich’s book Open Wide and say Moo: The Good Citizen’s Guide to Right Thoughts and Right Actions under Obamacare.
Hmm. Can’t have some people evading the government’s clutches. There must be a way to snag everyone. How about a wealth tax? Oh, wait. That is coming. It is called inflation.
You know what Oliver Wendell Holmes said when he was about 90 and saw a nice attractive young woman walking down the street? “Ah, to be seventy-five again.”
In february 1965, former French President, General DE GAULLE, predicted, during a press conference, the monetary crisis, the USA have brought the world in today. He then, asked for the return to a gold standard…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-g2iGskFPE&feature=player_embedded
By 2030, euthanasia will be the most common cause of death in much of the world. I don’t think there’s any country that can support the number of elderly invalids that is coming.
We barely support our present cohort of them.