A NEW MODEST PROPOSAL

(Something I wrote a couple years back at another forum.)

In his early eighteenth century satiric essay “A Modest Proposal”, Jonathan Swift, suggested that the Irish poor sell their children to the rich to be used as food. Swift offered ideas for how the children could be fattened before sale; suggested recipes for proper preparation; and ended his treatise by enumerating the benefits that would accrue both to the poor and to the Irish economic system that primarily served the interests of the wealthy.

We Americans might well consider something nearly as extreme as a way out of our present economic predicament—particularly by acknowledging that throughout history the less fortunate have often been asked to make concessions intended to make life more comfortable and prosperous for the already well-to-do.

So—consider this: Politicians from both sides of the aisle—and pundits from both conservative and liberal media—are in substantial agreement that healthcare costs are a major factor in our economic woes—which, if true (a short discussion of “if true” in a moment), begs for a correction that is both expedient and immediate.

Here, for your contemplation, is a modified version of Swift’s modest proposal.

Why not just let old people die rather than waste money keeping them alive? Why tolerate the huge medical costs incurred by the aged rather than just allowing them to die of their illnesses and infirmities—which is what they are going to do sooner or later anyway?

I am 75 years old and incurring more than my fair share of medical costs these days. I have lots of friends my age doing the same—and the older we get, the more costs we incur. Why not just deny us access to medical resources and let us perish if we cannot stay alive without them?

No need for “death squads”—we are more than capable of dying on our own—although providing help in the form of a painless potion would be a welcome sign that our society is not totally heartless. And it goes without saying that there is no reason why healthy, robust oldsters should not continue to live for as long as possible, consistent with not costing taxpayers, especially well-to-do taxpayers, any money to keep them alive.

Which segues me neatly into the “more about that in a moment” that I mentioned earlier.

You see, we have an abundance of doctors, nurses, medical technicians, hospital beds, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, medical diagnostic equipment and drugs. And we have lots of schools and manufacturing facilities that can train more healthcare providers as needed and replenish equipment and drugs as they are depleted. So the truth is that we already have more than enough of all the stuff needed to provide adequate healthcare for everyone in this country.

Unfortunately our economic system and sensibilities will not allow for reasonable, efficient, equitable distribution of these resources. Money has to change hands; profits have to be made; the capitalistic taboo against anything even remotely resembling socialized medicine has to be strictly observed.

Anyway, most of the people in power (and the citizens who put them into power) want to conceive of this problem as a “medical costs” issue rather than an “inefficient medical resources distribution” problem—which is probably the reason we are all spinning our wheels rather than actually coming up with a “solution.”

Folks, we are the wealthiest nation that has ever existed on planet Earth; we’ve got plenty of everything needed to provide adequate health care for everyone—yet we accept, indeed embrace, the notion that because of the way our economic system works “we cannot afford” for everyone to have a reasonable share of that “plenty.” For some reason, we buy into the notion that some people simply have to do without!

That is sad—although “bizarre” might be a more accurate characterization. But the bottom line is that once a mind-set like that is firmly entrenched and a refusal to consider change is laid in concrete, the only way to proceed is to pretend that the easing of medical costs is the only way to help get us out of the pit into which we have fallen.

Which brings us back to the modest proposal of this essay—because that is an absolutely sure way to “ease medical costs.”

Here’s how we could go about letting the old people die rather than “costing us a fortune keeping them alive”—and still maintain a pretence that we are not ruthlessly throwing people off a cliff. We start by cutting off all government aid to anyone 75 or older (there’d be tax savings galore; lots of people would be delighted with that turn of events); we eliminate Medicare completely and allow private insurance companies to refuse coverage to anyone 75 or older (big impact on profits and coverage costs here—and “those people” would be even more delighted!). You can easily see that making these two moves would make treating and/or hospitalizing most old people highly unprofitable—and we all know where that is going to go. Problem essentially solved!

So there it is! Great savings with no damage to the economic system we hold sacred—in fact, we would be working within the system itself. No need even to consider alternate ways to distribute our massive bounty! All we have to do is figure out how to dispose of bodies efficiently—a much easier problem with which to deal.

And the only losers are cranky, old, people of limited means like me—who are going to die soon anyway.

Think about it! If this works, we can improve our situation even further by cutting selected younger people’s access to medical resources—people who cost lots to keep alive for reasons unrelated to advanced age, like heavy smokers; drug addicts; people with congenital diseases; and over-weight people. We could also offer tax incentives for people 65 or older to opt for “an early out.” (See earlier comment about “painless potion.”)

Sure, we Americans can work this out. We can preserve our economic system and insure we never come even close to socialized medicine. We can make do with what we have going right now—and we can do it without sacrificing children or indulging in overt cannibalism.

I say, let’s go for it.