I ask a simple question for the first guy that I met. And I said, ‘What about the eleventh year? You guys constructed this health care bill with six years of costs and ten years of revenue. What about the eleventh year?’ And the guy looks at me and says, ‘I’m eighty!’ Sam Zell

 

Yes, this is the fact of the matter by the admission of reformists themselves; six years of spending supported by ten years of revenue. Mr Zell is actually quite generous here as the fly in the ointment surfaces in the seventh year, not the eleventh. By the eleventh year, even on its own terms, the whole operation will be five years in arrears. And the anonymous Senator presumes he will then be dead and happily so. Well, we assume this is a fellow who knows his own worth. If he is happy we should be happy. But what if his date with eternity stands him up? What if death disappoints?

It’s a serious matter. In many ways we could assign nearly all our current fiscal problems to a rampant death deficit in the nation and across the globe. Did you ever wonder why the Social Security age is 65? It’s simple. When the whole contraption was cooked up female life expectancy was 65. Male of course was 60 or so. So not only was Social Security never meant to provide “retirement” for working men, it was meant only to keep the most supple of their widows for a few years! How did the plan run to ruin? An insufficient rate of death.

The dearth of death is also responsible in Medicare. And here there is a vicious cycle at work. As oldsters live longer and longer their breathes and heartbeats cost more and more. Not only that but the costs rise in a dramatic spike as the health care consumer draws closer and closer to the inevitable. Think of how many geriatrics die in intensive care after a week or more when they could have graciously dropped and stayed down; this is the problem, from an actuarial standpoint. There is just too much life out there.

Registered genius Paul Krugman addressed this simple fact with simple clarity on an occasion where he forgot witnesses were present. If you hit that link you can see Christianne Amanpour have a petit mal stroke as she realizes the cat Krugman is tossing out of the bag here. There is little doubt that she is as happy to “stand up” to the death panel slanderers as Krugman is, but she understood that to mean denouncing them as liars and loons. What Krugman proposes in his “stand up” to Sarah Palin and her fear-mongers is to say, “Damn right there are death panels. What of it?”

Amanpour may show a greater understanding of PR here but she looses on points to Krugman. His is the mathematical argument and it is impossible to refute on mathematical grounds. People live longer, the costs go up and up. That’s it, something has to give. In recognition of this fact and the political dangers of proposing unpopular but necessary actions, let me be the first to introduce a simple solution to all our woes. Call it, the Six Tenths Compromise.

Science and medicine seem to be showing us a biblical truth; the upward limit to human life is right around 100. Maybe the metric system had something to it after all? In any case, while there are outliers who inch their walkers over the century mark, these are few. It seems if we could eliminate all causes of death except for old age, the average would be just about at the triple digits. This is at least as accurate a number as 65 as a basis for figuring so let’s use it. Since 100 is the maximum and history shows us that few, damned few humans ever get near to cracking half of that, a spirit of fairness dictates that we too submit ourselves to the discipline of reality. We could hem and haw over the numbers but it would be difficult to refute under any fair reading that 60 years is, in global and historical terms, quite generous. We could possibly give the ladies the extra five years they enjoyed under Roosevelt but that would be discrimination, so it’s out.

Six tenths of a theoretical maximum lifespan is what we will alot to each citizen or legal resident alien. Certainly we can’t go around running the AARP crowd through the woodchipper, not least because I have begun getting mail from them myself. Likewise we can’t just withhold medical treatment for demographic reasons if only because it would validate Sarah Palin. So here is the best part of the Six Tenths Compromise; it is a pincer maneuver. On the one flank medical science will be turned to the difficult task of seeing to it that EVERYONE, at least who is actually born, will live to 60. From the other side we must see to it that life expectancy is legitimately held right AT 60. The patriots of the tobacco industry will be helpful here. Other industries likewise will benefit from, say, a regime that outlines some nearly suicidal jobs that will be taken by those nearing the Big Six-Oh. Bungee jumping might be allowed only to those of 59 years. As one approaches the magic number, dietary rules go clear out the window. Clotted cream will be recruited to clot some arteries. But only on schedule friends, only on schedule. Geriatric research will be outlawed. But pediatrics likewise. Mathematically, we just can’t include babies because their ultimate status is too uncertain. Let the babies live or die without entering into our calculations until, say, five years old or so, at which point no expense will be spared to see that they make it to 60 and expire at 60 plus a day.

Run these numbers and you will find that all the deficits and unfunded liabilities melt away and set the currency, the nation and the populace on a globally consistent, environmentally friendly and sustainable path. The amazing bit is that it has taken so long for us to come to so effective and fair a solution. Certainly this will be a bi-partisan issue, this frank discussion of our crippling Death Deficit. Of course nearly every politician you have heard of is past the expiration date or near to it but we can count on their patriotism and good sense, I am sure.

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