By 2030, the largest demographic group in Kansas will be people older than 75, Laszlo Kulcsar, a Kansas State University sociology professor, noted at the annual Kansas Economic Policy Conference last week in Lawrence. “For every 10 people that Kansas gains between now and 2030, nine of them will be over 65 years old,” Kulcsar said.
The reason for this shift is not that senior citizens are coming to Kansas to retire. Rather, it’s that so many younger Kansans are leaving the state. This exodus will create huge social demands for meeting the needs of an older population.
Posted by Angie Holladay
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50 Comments
AngiePart of the reason is as you stated.The bigger part of the reason is that people are living longer.When people don’t die, the average age goes up.We are victims of our success.Longevity is great, but we havent figured out how to pay for it.Social Security was designed prior to the health breakthroughs that have us all living longer.Same with Medicare.
Worked to Death, the new motto for Pro-Life Paul! I see he’s a Darwinist now! What happen to the quality of life issue? You’re born, you consume, you reproduce, make more consumer, then you die, or be killed for making the mistake of retiring. Are you planning to lead by example, oh Slave Master? Should I shoot my dear Gramp now? He seems to enjoy snoozing in that rocking chair of his, and honestly, his snoring is getting on MY NERVES!
Go to bed, Paul. You sound you’ve had one too many …
Pall,”The bigger part of the reason is that people are living longer.”Well, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it if you did your part to skew the demographic back. We’ll send flowers!
Sorta’ like a “Master Race”, huh, Paul ? What exactly happened with your “public teat” job — you know, the one in the County Clerk or the Register of Deeds office ? I can’t recall which one it was. Actually, Paul, even though I can’t remember which office it was, I do remember quite a few details . Care to share them with everyone ? Your “recollection” would probably serve you better than mine . My late dear friend, (LC@CTRRE, for privacy purposes), gave me daily reports as the “wheels came off” — I don’t think you want my version out in public. Lighten up, Paul. You’re way out of line.
I may have to agree with Paul on this, although not in the way he expresses it.
In the first two decades after WWII, our nation, through the GI Bill, Pell and state tuition grant programs, ultra-low-interest student loans, and unprecedented funding for tertiary education facilities creation and expansion, expressed a high hope of advancing our economy’s development, by making higher education accessible to tens of millions of ordinary Americans whose parents’ education ended somewhere between 8th and 12th grade.
In short, we envisioned this to be a strategic human-capital investment. And it paid humongous dividends.
The problem with heavy government funding of elderly is that it isn’t an investment, it’s a social -overhead cost. As originally envisioned, social security benefits would be paid to a very small percentage of Americans, for a relatively short ( less than 10 year average) time. Medicare was originally conceived to primarily provide hospitalization coverage, modeled after private insurance, which did the same thing.
But the enlarging elderly population, as a percentage of our total, is rapidly increasing. (Absent immigration, legal and illegal, it would be increasing even faster. Mexico isn’t sending us members of its viejo population.) People who are 65 have an average life expectency of more than 15 years, and this is increasing. At the same time, Medicare benefits have been expanded enormously.
Many legal immigrants, such as Asians, earn high incomes and make substantial contributions to this generation of retirees’ benefits. Low-wage illegal immigrants can’t do this, even if social security contributions are withheld in their paychecks, which often isn’t even the case.
When I was in medical training and practice, I believed I was mostly helping older people. But I saw a very troubling provision of futile intensive care to cancer victims (not all of whom were elderly by any means), and end-stage heart and lung disease sufferers, that often cost well in excess of a quarter million dollars in today’s dollars. Which did nothing more than prolong patients’ and their families’ misery for a few weeks to a few months before death occurred.
I personally witnessed people who could not even recognize their closest family members, being maintained in a subhuman state in nursing homes.
In these cases, it was as if we were trying to defeat nature, but we couldn’t. Money was to be made, to be sure, but was it a responsible use of taxpayer dollars? I didn’t think so then, and I don’t now. But it is still being done.
I do not believe it is reasonable to forestall death in the absence of quality of life. I believe that if families want this “service” for their beloved parents, they should pay for it themselves– or else provide care at home. (If mistakes are made, who is going to sue whom?)
Expanding this idea to social security, it may become necessary for well-functioning seniors to live with their children’s families, as societies have historically done. To wit, absent monthly social security checks, what choices would families make? History indicates they would readopt 3-4 generation households.
This argues for nongovernment-funded problem-solving. On the other hand, I believe that drug development and distribution might best be managed by the government. I don’t believe that government does everything badly. It has paid for the basic research that gives us modern drugs. It has paid for the educations of (probably all) drug-industry scientists.
Drug companies are fixated on trying to capture high-earning-potential revenues. THEY waste a lot of money, because drug R&D is fundamentally a gamble, and you lose more often than you win. So to succeed in a commercial milieu, to make this profitable, you have to win big, which is why Big Pharma loves to say, “We’ve hit a homerun.”
But real life isn’t about striking out 20 times to hit 1 homerun. We could federalize drug R&D, which would involve top scientists and doctors deciding which diseases merit various levels of drug-invention funding, and then having all the R&D performed in universities and the NIH. Then the government could issue manufacturing licenses to drug companies to do mass production and distribution, and make a decent living.
Why do I suggest this? Well, look at how Big Pharma influenced the Congress to preclude the government from negotiating drug prices for the Medicare Part D legislation. Look at how it has battled reimportation of drugs from Canada. Prescription costs in nearly every developed nation outside the U.S. are far lower than they are here. The majority of prescription costs were born by retirees, and now by the government, i.e. working taxpayers. We won’t be able to afford this scheme in coming years. We really can’t afford to subsidize low drug prices in the rest of the world by paying exorbitant drug prices here.
We have to bear in mind that higher efficiencies can be achieved by transferring drug R&D to the federal sector. This may sound counterintuitive to private-sector proponents who believe that the private market is always more efficient, but here’s the real deal: privated drug companies operate in isolation. They hide their findings, good and bad. (In the case of one company’s getting bad results, they don’t mind at all if some other companies go down the same dead end after them and waste money.) In a public-research scheme, you’d have hundreds of thousands of scientists openly sharing their data, and judging results. This would make progress much more efficient.
Moreover, once you’ve done the R&D, including FDA-required Phase I, II and III trials, manufacturing the medicine is relatively cheap. Outpatient drugs that cost $10 a tablet can typically be manufactured for less than fifty cents.
I believe that we need to return to lower social-overhead elderly-support costs, and at the same time substantially raise our investments in young people’s productivity.
Jawohl, Herr Rosell! Arbeit Macht Frei!
… just being very sarcastic, in my trying to express my anger and disgust in these ideas of yours! Know that you have just now advocating the Sin of Sodom: Inhospitality.
Nicely put, heart. I totally support open R&D climate. I see it that Big Pharma, as you call it, they’re gambling on our well-being. Shouldn’t they be more charitable, instead of focusing on the profits alone?
Nicely put, true — just wrong, based on a false premise. MOST drug research is not done by drug companies. It is done in college and university research labs, financed by federal tax dollars and drug company “grants” (which are tax-deduxtible as expense by the drug companies equalling more federal tax dollars). When the research is successful the grantor company gets the patent, and makes train cars full of money. When it’s not, the grantor gets the write-off.
Yes, drugs are significantly cheaper in other countries. Why ? Because “Uncle Sam” to the world underwrites the costs, again with federal tax dollars, for the “less fortunate” countries, which apparently includes them all. Screw ‘em, our own “less fortunate” elderly are deservant of our compassion. I don’t give a damn what the Ugandans, the Paks, or the Frogs are paying for or their availability of the latest drugs.
In many of these countries, unfortunately, fatal disease and natural disasters are the only things staving off famine because there is no birth contol. It’s not pretty, but it’s a fact.
Our elderly raised us and sacrificed for us. They were not just our parents, but our neighbors, our teachers, our school bus drivers, whatever. We owe them dignity and our compassion.
Angie – why don’t you ask the big question here?
Question:Why are our young people taking their great education and leaving Kansas?
Answer:Because there are no jobs for them in the fields in which they obtained their college degree.
Question:Why is that?
Answer:Because Kansas is such a high tax state those companies are leaving and we cannot attract new ones without paying them big dollars in the way of gigantic tax breaks.
Question:How do we turn this around?
Answer:We lower taxes and work on bringing new industries to Kansas.
Easy solution but you don’t have a Governor or a legislature that will do it. All they want to do is spend and expand and then spend some more. It has to stop. What are they going to do when all they have is the elderly on fixed incomes?
Roo that’s sort of the thing about healthcare. Unlike other “markets” where people make free-will decisions, “The Lexus is really cool, but I can buy a Saturn for less than half the price,” when people are sick, and particularly REALLY sick, they are under DURESS. They aren’t capable of making a “best trade” according to free-market principals, they instead submit themselves in trust to somebody who will take care of them and protect their interests.
I remember one time in an ER when two drunken men showed up about midnight. One of them had a Popeye right forearm. His friend said “Jim was bitten by a rattlesnake.” I looked at Jim’s forearm and saw two punctures. Jim was out of it. I asked his friend what happened, and he said they were hunting rattlesnakes, and one bit through a gunnysack that Jim was carrying. He then said, “We’ve got the snakes in the back of the truck, do you want me to bring it in?” I responded, “No, that’s okay, I believe you.” I gave him what antivenin we had in stock, but it wasn’t enough for complete treatment, so I contacted a medical center that did have an ample stock, and transported him there. I didn’t think to ascertain his ability to pay, e.g personally or through insurance, because my only task was to save his life.
Later, as an anesthesiologist, I was asked by my billing manager whether I wanted to sic a collection agency on a non-paying uninsured patient. I told her, “He’s already suffered enough. If our uninsured are willing and able to make installment payments, that’s fine. If they don’t, just write it off.” So she did. I wasn’t a businessman. I took the Hippocratic Oath, a profession to serve people.
I violated a cardinal med-defense-lawyer’s rule: when I made mistakes, I went quickly to patients and their families, and fessed up. I explained my rational for why I did what I did, and what I did worked well most of the time, but not every time. I made arrangements for them to receive followup care to patch up my errors.
How many times was I sued? Zero. I had an intutive sense that malpractice suits were a product of not-caring arrogance and neglect of patients’ personal needs and feelings. EVERYBODY MAKES MISTAKES, but HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH YOUR MISTAKES? Mistakes can be rectified. Denial of mistakes is disastrous.
Anyway, drug companies are run by businessmen. But the medical treatment of people who are suffering isn’t a business, or shouldn’t be, it is a usually service to those whose decisionmaking is not unencumbered free will. When you are sick, you can’t engage in a business trade, you want to find somebody who has YOUR INTEREST at heart.
I tip my hat to you, heart. My sincerest gratitude for the actions you took.
rm6046, I don’t get why you say my statements are “true” but “wrong”. Have you worked in drug-development research? I did. At age 22, I invented a new oxygen-therapeutic. It was federally funded. It was basic research. I knew it wasn’t “the answer”, but it was a first-step. I wanted to publish my findings in a first-tier peer-reviewed journal, but my boss decided to privatize my research and sell it to a major pharmaceutical company.
Later my spouse was involved in a “Phase I/II” trial of a genetically-engineered product. Being a library rat, I digested all of the manufacturer’s published research. Their first blockbuster drug was a revelation. The company was going down the drain until a Big Pharma company invested in them (pre-IPO). They took public research performed in Australia, and federally-funded research done here, and figured out, “If we pour a lot of money into this, we can leapfrog less-well-funded university scientists and get a patent, using their public knowledge as our foundation. He who now has the most money to do the scientifically trivial research, wins.” And they did.
Should they have been rewarded with an exclusive patent for research that was primarily funded by the Australian and American public? I don’t think so. But lawyers and judges are not scientists. They look at a 10% contribution and decide it merits 100% of royalties. rm6046, does that make sense to you? It doesn’t make sense to me.
Take baseball. Team A scores 6 runs in the first 8 innings. Team B scores nothing in the first 8 innigs 2 runs in the last inning while team B scors no runs. Or football. Team A scores 3 touchdowns in the first three quarters. It doesn’t score any points in the fourth quarter. But team B scores a touchdown.
Do you give the win to team B? Not in baseball or football, but in drug research it’s a completely different story.
Heart: Now, I agree with you completely. Either I misread your original conclusions, or you “tweeked” them for your second post, and corrected the direction you were going. Either way, we’re now saying the same things. And, BTW, I’m not a scientist … I’m a lawyer ! Really ! Bottom line for both of us is that we’re getting screwed by Big Pharma !! Agreed ?
And to make it even worse, Heart, if I’m still alive in 2030, I’ll be 84 ! In some places I’ve already been getting “senior’s discounts” for ten years. How the hell is “50″ a senior citizen ? I’m also seriously physically handicapped by scoliosis and spinal degeneration due to osteoporosis, but I refuse to get a placard or a plate, simply because there a hell of a lot of people out there that need those close-up parking places a lot more than I do. I’m not looking for a medal or a pat on the back … it’s just that I am not my diseases. At least, not yet !
Pay for what gladly ? Outrageous drug costs ? I guess I’m missing something here.
REPUGNICAN,funny you should mention morons.They run the country right now.People who are capable of abstract thought will be taking the country back over the next couple of years.
The morons are a large and powerful tribe that is part of a larger powerful group,THE IDIOTS.
rm6046,I can identify with what you are going through.Between the drug companies and the insurance companies, the kind of treatment that patients recieve is immoral.Insurance companies should be held accountable for knowingly and willingly denying valid claims, and making the appeals process so ridiculous that people just pay claims they shouldn’t have to.A standard business practice that is shameful.
I think the lower birth rate back in the 1970s and 1980s had something to do with the decline of youth in Kansas as well. Birthrate appears to be climbing back up, but I think immigrations (legal and illegal) are included in those figures.
I would say a lot of today’s elderly planned better for the future. Lot of folks my grandparent’s age depended on social security and smaller pension checks, sometimes with no medical benefits from companies.
I think almost every elderly citizen these days are authorized medicare in addition to their personal own health care insurance.
Something to think about though, good topic.
Tracy: Thanks for explaining it to me. I just thought they had the worst personnel directors of any industry, and they only hired from that tribe you were speaking about earlier. For example, a $503 claim was denied because the provider was “not a doctor they recognized”. I took one look at the “Explanation of Benefits” denying the claim, and instantly realized they had transposed the doctor’s last name and her first name. When I pointed that out, after 25 minutes on hold or “Push 3″, “Push 9″ etc., the “Customer Service” Representative said, “Well, golly, you’re sure right. She is one of our providers!” I asked if they couldn’t have figured that out from her Federal Tax I.D. number, and after a long pause, finally said, “Well, I suppose so, but nobody ever asked me to check that before !” I couldn’t see her, obviously, but I would bet the farm there was a “deer in the headlights” look on her face ! She didn’t have a clue. And that’s just the latest story I could tell !
“When people don’t die, the average age goes up.”
No shit Einstein.
“Let the market decide who lives and who dies.”
And this horrifying statement from mr. “pro-life’? YIKES. Pro life but only if the “market” decided who lives and dies?
He trusts “the market” with life and death decisions but not a woman and her doctor?
Holy shit.
“If you do not have family to care for you then you have no business sticking around.”
Wow. Mr. prolife again? OMG
“It sounds cold but we are a survival of the fittest society and it works.”
And this from a man who likely supported the Kansas Bored of Evangelicals in their decision to deny evolution exists?
Ok. For real now.
A vote for Bonnie Huy is a vote for paulie and his warped logic.
A vote for Toddly is a vote for paulie and his warped logic.
“pro life” but only if “the market” decides?
So if there is a “market” for abortion it is ok?
OMG. That just about says it all for paulie and his standards.
RM, come on. Dont leave us hanging. If the “wheels coming off” look anything like THIS postcard from paulie, I cant wait to hear the details.
Dish, girl!
ksfarmgrrl: In fairness, I’m not going to say anymore until Paul submits his explanation … assuming he has the balls, or has had ample time to reply. If you want more now, research either the Sedgwick County Clerk’s office (I think that was what is was) or the Sedgwick County Register of Deeds office circa 1996 or 1997. I can’t remember exactly. I’ve given Paul enough information in my posting to know what I’m talking about, and probably even who I am. But, I will give him another hint. Remember a pre-election luncheon with Paul and his soon to be boss and my recently deceased friend LC at a little bar just south of Central on West Street on the west side of the street. Let’s see if he responds. I want to be fair — though I’m not sure why. Character flaw, I suppose.
Ok Paul said before that he ran for government office. I didn’t know he had actually worked in government. Details PLEASE rm!
This is it, no more until he responds. It involved “conversion” of public property (office furnishings) to private use and public employees for private construction, (seems like it was a driveway being poured, as I recall), at the new home the guy who was actually elected was having built, whose name escapes me. If I’m recalling this right, Paul was his campaign manager, and post-election, hired as “chief deputy”. Of course, some deal was cut and the property was returned and restitution paid, and the guy resigned, which meant Paul was out, too, of course, and it “all went away” and the county didn’t get any “bad press” out of the deal. That’s close, but it’s been a long time ago and details are fuzzy, at best. And Paul, as I recall, was never accused of actually being a part of it, but certainly knew, or should have known, about it. As my Daddy used to say, “If you sleep with dogs, you’re gonna’ get fleas”. And I’m not accusing Paul of anything … but I’d love to hear his explanation of the whole mess. Did I mention that my friend, LC, died quite recently under very mysterious circumstances not adaquately explained to date despite an autopsy at 42 years old?
rm, I believe it was the Register of Deeds. Your fuzzy memory as to what occurred coincides with mine. I applaud you for your awaiting Paul’s response.
Correction: Age 44 — Date of Death August 14, 2006. Sorry about that.
I have a feeling Paul was trolled at 2:00 AM. I don’t want to believe that was really him.
hmmm… I think you are on to something.
Always a possibility, for sure. If he says he was, I, for one, would certainly give him the benefit of the doubt.
What we need is to eliminate social security and medicare. Let the market decide who lives and who dies.
Well, hell, Paul.
Why not just take it one step further?
Eradicate the unwanted elderly like we kill a rat in our kitchen.
More for us that way, right guy?
God must indeed be patient to let scum of the earth Republicans like you “speak” for him.
Kill off the unwanted elderly.
Hey, Republikkkan–
You agree with Paul’s plan to let the ignored elderly just die?
You have no objection to that?
rm, the driveway story sure rings a bell with me, but an entirely different setting.In Pittsburg/Frontenac KS, Papa Joe Saia (a local Italian politician) was long suspected of mob ties, bribery and other under the table dealings.On one occasion, the contractor who was repaving city streets, mysteriously paved all the way up Joe’s driveway.Indicted and brought to court, Joe was silent on the issue until he got to take the stand.In his defense, he simply stated that he had no connections to the contractor, did not request his driveway work, and he just figured they were being extra nice to him.When cross-examined, he simply said, “Hey, if the guy wants money for it, all he has to do is bill me”, “I never got a bill”.Case dismissed.End of investigation.
Given Paul’s position of letting old folks die a miserable and preventable death from starvation or disease, the charges brought against him for child endangerment are starting to fit into a pattern.
Republican: In the past, certainly some of ksfarmgrrl’s comments were, at best, less than constructive. But, I just re-read what she has to say this morning and I see no evidence whatsoever to qualify your accusations. I’m still waiting for your answer to “gladly pay” for what? And, as much as I hate leaving this discussion, I have to leave for the airport in 20 minutes and won’t return until MOnday night or Tuesday.
Yeah, Tracy, I remember the Pittsburg/Frontenac deal with Saia, and certain similairities exist between the two situations, but I’m not confusing them into one event. I’m only at the “moderate CRS” plateau at present.
I’m out of here ! Have a safe and pleasant weekend . See ya’ Monday night or Tuesday !
Didn’t Colorado Gov. Romer say roughly the same thing about the elderly? Something about they should do society a favor and just go away and die?
We can only hope Paul was trolled. I don’t agree with him the vast majority of the time, but he hangs in there with a spirited defense of his views.
It’s no secret why young people are leaving this state. THERE’S NOTHING HERE.
Personally, I like it here, but if I was a 22 year old college grad, I’d go live somewhere interesting, with fewer hillbillies per square mile.
The first post was definitely Paul. That’s his style of writing. The author of the second post is questionable.
Perhaps Paul would agree to euthanizing each person on his or her 65th birthday to avoid aging?
Ok Paul said before that he ran for government office. I didn’t know he had actually worked in government. Details PLEASE rm!
65? Let’s do a Logan’s Run and set it at 30. Remember, you can’t trust anyone over 30.
Yeah Rd –One is signed paulrosell@sbcglobal.net the other one signed paulrosell@sbcglobal.comMaybe he was just out of it or either that he is schizophrenia.
Back to the IP in this thread. The issue identified therein is not limited to Kansas; with a daughter in college in Maine, I, from time to time, read the major newspaper web site in said state. Mainers, too, have the same issue concerning it.
The reasons for young people leaving a state for “somewhere else” are likely as many as there are those in the exodus. Most commonly, the reason given is that they see little to no opportunity for their future in the state left.
Hypotheses identifying the reasons for the perceived lack of opportunity abound. “High taxes” limiting economic growth is a popular one; another is “lack of something to do”. My personal thought, as to the two states I have mentioned, is that in both cases, the state’s economy is based upon “dying” enterprises: Kansas, agriculture and manufacturing; Maine, upon the textile mills and lumber industries. Both states waited too long, I believe, identifying the issue and taking corrective steps.
I believe the key to keeping Kansas youth here depends upon better education, a change in emphasis in the base “industries” in the state, and a change in our attitudes about things that are “new and different”. Without these things, I fear for my future, as well as the future of our greying population.
Kansas needs to be far LESS CONSERVATIVE and more open to diversity. Young people don’t want to live where everything they do is chastised and they’re expected to behave like old people to be accepted. Gays don’t want to live where they’re not accepted. We also need smaller family farms to raise food and cattle, and make it profitable enough for them to survive.
Paul and others who advocate throwing out our elderly- well Paul, I’ll remember that when you’re old and feeble. And I hope your nurse feels like you do.
Un freaking believeable.
Looks like ya’ got the same “friend” posting for you that does the same for me.Enjoy!!
Why do people on the left resort to sabotage and lies???This blog could be a place where people who dont always agree with each other might be able to find some common ground, or at least understand each other.Instead, false postings are so frequent that you cant be sure who is who and what anyone really believes.You trolls are cowards.
political momThe false, troll post has been deleted.Thanks to the Eagle.I appreciate it!Paul