Issues? Remember them? Well, this has to do with a big one: Health Care, and the government role therein.
You probably know that the Social Security "crisis" is a myth. You probably also know that the Boston Red Sox finally broke the curse of The Bambino. But what about the "fact" that Baby Boomers are going to break the bank on Medicare?
Turns out, not so much. The real problem is not aging Boomers. It's a crazy incentive system that drives "innovation" and costs much faster and higher than it drives health results. So resports Maggie Mahar, who blogs at Health Beat, a Century Foundation project, in an Alternet article, "The Mythology of Boomers Bankrupting Our Healthcare System".
In the 1 picture=1k words department, dig this:
Mahar's article is based on a presentation at the recent three-day "World Health Care Congress Europe" (WHCCE), by Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt:
The only American to speak at WHCCE, Reinhardt focused on what he called "the folklore that people bring to the healthcare policy table." By nature an iconoclast, Reinhardt spent the next 20 minutes shattering some of the myths that have become part of the received wisdom among policymakers.
The generational split between Clinton/McCain and Obama, between boomers and post-boomers alarms me -- and I have five decades under my belt. There are too many boomers.
Here's my thesis.
1) There is an evolutionary, physiological basis for identity-based politics.
2) We use policy arguments to affirm and rationalize our identity biases.
3) We are a small minority who understand and feel the fierce urgency of now: impending overshoot and collapse. (Are Humans Smarter Than Yeast?)
3) Unless the Clinton/McCain pair trips, boomers will deliver to us in the presidency another eight years of more of the same.
4) That is really unfortunate.
