Mature Life Features

. . . keeps on increasing,

but it’s still high on everyone’s list.

= = = = =

Aging Politicians

Ignore Aging Population

While there have been loud voices bemoaning the fact that we’re not paying enough attention to climate change, there isn’t even a whimper about what’s happening to our population change.

It’s paradoxical that the greying heads in government are paying little attention to the graying of their constituents.

The voters’ rolls are adding 10,000 over-65ers every day. You’d think that all those silver-haired politicians would be looking hard at how to accommodate the needs of folks who are growing old just as they are. Even the aging talking heads on television seem ignorant of what’s concerning a growing segment of their viewers.

The apparent reasoning for this blindness to a massive problem is the mantra that 70 is the new 50. And the spreading myth that age is simply a state of mind. Several studies topple this trend in thinking by supporting what we’ve always known – ailing and aching increase as you get older.

No matter how Pollyannaish we may feel, our odds of falling victim to such widespread debilitations as Alzheimer’s disease increase the longer we live.

As the aging population grows, the birth-rate is diminishing as women are having fewer children.

While health-care is high on the list of promises by those seeking votes, the focus usually is on the young who have inadequate coverage rather than the elderly who cannot care for themselves.

Another major concern is the strength and stability of Social Security. Predictors tell us there will be about two workers supporting each recipient by the early 2030s. This was not in any forecasts when there were more than 45 workers for each recipient of benefits when the program was instituted back in the 1930s.

Meanwhile, aging and aged politicians seeking election and re-election to Congress and Senate in Washington, DC, suggest it might be a good idea to push back the age for receiving Social Security benefits that seniors have paid into all their working lives.

A sign of the widening awareness that aging has its problems, not only for the aging but for those around them who care, are recent reports that three-quarters of respondents to a survey indicated doctors should be allowed to help a patient die peacefully and painlessly if there is no possible cure.

Medically assisted deaths are legal in 10 states — Maine, New Jersey, Vermont, New Mexico, Montana, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Calfornia and Hawaii.

Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program adopted in 2016 was aimed at individuals with terminal illness. It was changed in 2021 to include anyone with a serious or chronic condition that isn’t life-threatening.