Boomers will be invisible

[Mulhane]

Every other decade or so, some news group will take quick but shocking look at the abusive and negligent state of nursing homes, and we might even get a peek at some the depressed and miserable inmates. But nobody wants to see old people in wheelchairs with no hair or teeth, so it's quickly back to young, bright and shiny people. Nothing is done and they become as invisible as the homeless. Now one of the biggest demographic waves in US history is staggering into the invisible zone. They will not, for the most part, be like their parents and cruise between 2 houses in gigantic Winnebagos, play golf every week, and benefit from company pensions as well as SS. As many of us as there are, don't kid yourself....the American ability to ignore "problem people" is unlimited.

[Marblehead]

1. A fascist nation...

does not take care of the weakest among them.

[enough]

2. I think you're right, unless boomers decide to stand up massively and fight against the tide.

I took care of my very elderly parents for a few years at the end of their life. They had absolute 100 percent medical care and never paid a bill or even a copay. (They had both been teachers.) In fact it often seemed to me the hospitals and specialists were trying to think of extra ways to treat them just because the payments were painless for everyone.

The whole time I was doing it, I was acutely aware that that kind of care was not going to be around by the time I got to needing it.

[snappyturtle]

4. I'm going through this now with my mother. She has government

employee (thru my deceased Father) insurance. She has the best of the best for just about anything she can complain about...and does. She's old, 94, and has never adjusted to aging. She WON'T have it!! Oh, boy. And here I am with no insurance. I gave up a job, a new one-post recent divorce, to live with her and care for her to avoid nursing home care. I am not paid to be here.

Yesterday she told me I need to apply for Medicaid! I hope to die before I get as old as she is.

[Ernesto]

3. Back in the late '60's, I really believed that "grey power" would be a force for good

What did I get? Ignorant old repukes & teabaggers!

[Mulhane]

5. Anyone can buy a gun

There's one Tea- bagger approved solution for those who one day find themselves too broken down to work and standing on the sidewalk with nowhere to go. There is also money to be made in the prison/industrial complex. Boomers with nowhere to go would be "vagrants." Make it a felony. Then we get free health care,shelter, a bed, lots of rest, and Funamentalist Xtian re-education classes.

[RagAss]

6. I doubt we will see the sidewalks littered with suicide- baggers.

[Mulhane]

7. Maybe they will get mad and start shooting each other

After all, they have bought into the corporate myth that poor people are the root of all our problems.

[blue neen]

10. We have not all bought into the corporate myths...some of us still have brain cells left.

:loveya:

It's pretty doubtful that shootouts will take the place of the helpful things some seniors are doing for society, like working for Planned Parenthood, for instance.

[cliffordu]

14. Google "hobo with a shotgun"

Just sayin'

[blue neen]

8. IMHO, you couldn't be more wrong.

There is a lot of money to be made off of baby boomers...as long as that is true, boomers will not be ignored.

I can say that as one who can see how advertising is shifting to appeal to people like me.

[Mulhane]

11. that depends...

....on how many Boomers are not impoverished. Not much money to be made on us unless we get to live like our parents and grandparents. IRA's are gutted and foreclosure rates are high. How much discretionary spending could there be? Life on SS alone (IF the Koch Crazies fail to ruin it)will be survival only.

[sufrommich]

9. The biggest demographic in the country won't disappear

until they die.

[Mulhane]

12. Disappear from public awareness

..if our economic condition continues to deteriorate. This is partly an indictment of the media, which would rather focus on glitz and glamor while depicting the poor as Jerry Springer low lives who probably deserve poverty.

[theophilus]

13. Boomers must unite and rise up angrily and fix this mess. Otherwise it is

Soylent Green time. We'll taste good on toast anyway.