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Is a Generational Conflict Coming?
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10910 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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5 / 1993 |
1,507 Words |
| Author
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Ralph Z. Hallow
Ralph Z. Hallow is a political reporter and senior national
correspondent for the Washington Times. |
A republic beset with social tensions over race, abortion, homosexual rights, urban-suburban violence, and massive illegal immigration does not need a generational clash.
But like the Bosnian-Serb civil war that was only awaiting the breakup of Yugoslavia in order to break out, the pieces are in place for a conflict between America's growing proportion of elderly and the dwindling proportion of workers.
Consider the following: The young face ever-rising taxes on their income to support the old. Today's middle-aged Americans will get less than they put into the Social Security system in taxes.
In the last 50 years, medical technology has boosted life spans by 12 years. The older you are, the longer you are likely to live. If you've made it to 50, you're likely to live to 79. If you've made it to 65, you're likely to keep on chugging till 82.
Older people are concerned about what all this is doing to the future of their children and grandchildren.
A political storm
Social Security has been called the third rail of American politics: touch it and you're dead.
Dislocations abound. Physicians have increased incomes at double the rate of average workers. Seventy percent of the uninsured have jobs but choose not to buy insurance. Still, a recent survey showed that the uninsured visit doctors 3.2 times a year, only 1.2 times less than insured people. The medical system adjusts its rated upward for everyone else to pay the unmet higher costs of the aged and disabled.
Politicians are scrambling to contain the crisis but often seem to act without considering the impact of their actions. Clinton seems intent on slapping price controls on prescription medicine, which accounts for less than 8 cents out of every health-care dollar.
Lobbying groups like the 33-million-member American Association of Retired Persons are readying themselves for an epic battle.
John Rother, AARP's chief of legislation and public polity, says that its polls show "a very high degree of support for
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