We used to think that the “good news” was that our generation was living longer, well into our eighties, far exceeding the median longevity of our predecessors. But, doesn’t it always seem that good news comes with a codicil containing “bad news”? In this case, the wording of the bad news is exactly like the languaging of the good, with one exception. It goes on to ask the question: Who will care for a generation of mostly ailing bodies that have many more years to live?

By the time all baby boomers are 65, the senior population will have grown from 40 million now to about 72 million. Who will pay their medical bills? It would appear the answer is “no one.” As a society we have been complacent, like grasshoppers fiddling away, our attention focused on our next bigger, better, and more exclusive purchase or extreme experience, and giving no thought to our ailing health care industry. Now that winter is setting in, the forecast is bleak with the number of retirees about to zoom upwards just the way the number of teenagers did in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.  Remember the good ole days when everything we touched turned to gold and every time we marched, we made a difference? Who was interested in taking care of our body, or to rally for a health care system that could one day. Instead, we just held onto our cherished belief that the future would inevitably continue to go our way because, what the heck, that’s the way things had always gone for our generation in the past.

What’s the answer? The sated folks on Capital Hill, with their good salaries and excellent health insurance, don’t seem to be able to pull their hyper-focus away from their personal ideologies in order to reach a compromise on healthcare reform, be they ideologically right or left. Affordable health insurance may never material. And, as the fight goes on, fixing the economy and getting people back to work (whatever their age) sits on the back burner.

As they say, the best defense is a good offense. Perhaps the best we can do for ourselves is to get healthy, boomers, and then stay that way. So, if you’ve been waiting for the right moment to begin that healthy lifestyle you’ve been considering for years, that time is now. Because if things keep going in the direction they seem to be headed, no one is going to be able to take care of your medical bills…including you!

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