OLD AGE: Single, Childless and ‘Downright Terrified’.

And a predictable NYT comment: “We have to take health care out of the hands of insurance companies, BigPharma and overpaid doctors. We need to set a goal of building a social welfare system similar to the more civilized countries in Europe, like France and Germany.”

More civilized? Well, possibly. But as The New York Times reported in 2003, In France, Nothing Gets in the Way of Vacation.

Apparently, nothing gets in the way of the holiday, not even grandma and grandpa. This summer’s withering heat wave claimed a staggering number of victims — the government talks of perhaps 5,000 deaths, the country’s largest undertaker twice that number — most of whom were elderly. The police, undertakers and social service agencies found them in apartments, homes and hotels. The rooms were often as hot as ovens.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, noted last week that roughly half the victims died in their homes, not in hospitals or nursing homes, implying that French families, in a rush to get to the beach, had simply left their loved ones to perish in the inferno. (And indeed, some families postponed funerals until after the Aug. 15 holiday weekend.)

The summer heat wave has exposed not only France’s slavish devotion to August vacation, but also the breakdown of family ties. French society, experts say, now increasingly turns its back on the elderly.

And, unsurprisingly, government employees don’t take the place of a caring family. Or, apparently, even an uncaring one.