What and when is Boomsday’ It happened yesterday. You may have missed it while sipping on your double espresso latte. The first Baby Boomer in history, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, filed for early retirement Monday, becoming the first baby boomer to start collecting Social Security (Fox News). Yesterday, the omnipresent demographic clock began its inextricable march, backwards, on close to 80 million Americans. Yesterday may have been the apex of my generation’s rough-shod run through the history of this great country. The question remains; will we have a soft landing and retire and expire gracefully or will we implode on society because we failed to plan for our basic needs at the ends of our days’
Novels have a knack for stripping bare the realities of our lives in ways that hard facts and figures often fail. Christopher Buckley’s Boomsday, highlights the coming reality of Generation Xer’s & Yer’s who are likely to resent the NOW Generation’s passing into drooling imbecility. Casey-Kirchling’s proud entry into this country’s archaic senior retirement (and soon) medical care system is emblematic of the hubris of my generation. Baby Boomers have absent mindedly supported and grown a gaggle of government run Ponzi Schemes. The heft of our demographic might has actuarially sustained and expanded Social Security and Medicare. Now we anticipate, with fanfare no less, to take advantage of these same bloated programs. Even more precisely, we expect our children and grandchildren to sustain and pay the price for the poor stewardship of programs originally designed for the truly needy that we now want for ourselves. Some even think it is a good idea to turn the entire medical care system over to the government. Now there’s a legacy we can stand on!
What is it that Baby Boomers don’t understand about the following statement’ Our country, our government doesn’t have the money to pay for Social Security and Medicare never mind their long-term care! What Magical Mystery tour are they on, as they deny the simple truth, that when they make it into their 80′s there is a one in two chance that they will need long-term care. Most would run to Vegas for those odds. Unfortunately, too many Baby Boomers are skipping naked towards a life with too few caregivers and no money to pay for the care that will be out of their reach.
Gail Sheehy of Parade Magazine had an epiphany when her husband was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. She shares this in an article that highlights the Baby Boomer’s absolute denial of all issues pertaining to long-term care and caregiving. Read it yourself if you need a wake-up call. How Can We Help Our Nation’s Caregivers‘ (Parade Magazine ‘ Search Gail Sheehy)
After reading Ms. Sheehy’s article I Googled ‘Caregiver Shortage’. I got more than 300,000 hits! Admittedly, I didn’t investigate all but I can tell you that there is a vast body of work documenting the current and future shortages of qualified caregivers and the impact on formal, informal and family caregivers. Sheehy’s existential discovery that caregiving is devastating and difficult acts to validate that which we have been talking about for many years; that planning financially for the long-term care event can’t be ignored. Those with money or long-term care insurance will get the care that they want. Those without will have to rely on their families or government to support them in their waning years. Is that what you want for you and your clients’ Is that what you want future generations to remember us by’
Read Boomsday; it may be your last laugh before the reality of long-term care is upon you and your clients.