To think that people living longer is making quality of life for everyone worse?

[Futurascope]

Possibly controversial…,

https://www.itv.com/news/2024-05-14/one-in-three-councils-not-confident-they-can-provide-basic-adult-social-care

“The fears about meeting the legal requirements come despite eight out of 10 councils forecasting having to cut spending on other community services such as parks, libraries and leisure centres to try to protect funding”.

So - libraries, leisure centres, parks, all vital for young children, families and others - being closed because the elderly desperately need social care.

As awful as it is for us all individually to lose somebody that we love….. is curing every disease, and having us all live to 100 really a good thing if it is at the expense of quality of life for the rest of society?

I really do think it's a bit much to call those who don't believe it's the State's job to provide for everyone indefinitely, "Nazis".

I find heartless twats more fitting

Ok this has got nothing to do with this thread but I read this bollocks on Mumsnet all the time and it annoys me:

"Perhaps the childfree, for example, might feel entitled to pay reduced tax. They don't use schools or maternity care, so why should they pay as much tax as us parents"

Why are the parents the ones "responsible" for the state paying for schooling and maternity care for their children? Surely we all are "responsible" for our own costs?
I mean obviously a child can't pay for these things but they will do eventually via their taxes when they grow up. Just like the rest of us.
If we're talking about "paying in" and "taking out" of the system then we all had the benefit of maternity care when we were born and schooling as children. Nobody (well almost nobody) avoids these costs to the taxpayer. The child free included!

Well, I’m not heartless, but at least that’s better than being called a flipping Nazi. I mean, for goodness sake.

Unless of course you weren't born or educated in the UK. I have a friend who has just retired. She came to England at 19. Has worked through our since then. No kids no hospital treatment etc. I think she's certainly paid more than her share

@Itsrainingten

Maybe I didn't explain well what I was trying to say.

I personally believe in community. Everyone contributes but also everyone is equally valued, all ages and whether parents or child free.

My point was the slippery slope regarding a poster asking why should an 80 year old 'expect' to be kept alive at 'other people's expense'. If that argument is valid (I don't agree it is), then why wouldn't the childfree perhaps think they should pay reduced tax if, after contributing to the expenses incurred by families with DC, when they're old they're told they don't 'deserve' medical treatment due to the expense.

That's just one example of the slippery slope of going down the road of deciding who is 'more worthy' of provision from public services.

I honestly do not think it is all that much of a reach. I think it is a slippery slope.

What is the alternative to the State providing 'for everyone indefinitely'? Do you really think that certain categories of people should be left to rot or die if they are not 'economically productive'? Who gets to decide which people are worthy of receiving resources?

BTW prior to the Nazi era, Germany was not some backwater; it was a centre of culture, art and philosophy at the very heart of Europe. So if it could happen there, it might happen anywhere; including here.

If we take the question completely at face value, then the answer is 'yes' the elderly living longer and costing money does mean less money for services for younger people (except it doesn't because that implies money not spent on the elderly would be spent on the young rather than more money to be hoarded by billionaires, but we'll ignore that bit).
So the next question, 'what do we want to do about it?'
My answer- nothing.

Going back to @Futurascope 's question in their OP:

As awful as it is for us all individually to lose somebody that we love….. is curing every disease, and having us all live to 100 really a good thing if it is at the expense of quality of life for the rest of society?

Why is this only to apply to those who reach 100 years old?

Let's do a thought experiment, according to the OP's rationale:

What about the extreme measures taken to keep very premature babies alive? Or those babies born with significant and sometimes life-limiting disabilities which mean they will need significant medical & social care their whole lives? Or babies born who could not survive without significant medical interventions?

These are human beings who will be a "drain" on the social/public purse for anything up to 60 years. Maybe parents should face up to "losing somebody that they love" because keeping that person alive from birth will be "the expense of quality of life for the rest of society"

This is the question that @Futurascope asks.

It would be interesting to know how OP measures quality of life. Is it based on what is necessary - clean water, food, shelter, clothing, sleep - or what is desired - designer labels, the latest high tech, luxury items etc.

I do actually think it's reasonable not to have expensive interventions (except palliative obviously) from a certain age. It would have to be pretty high though. Maybe 90? If you give a 90.year old a hip replacement for example, how many years return are you getting on that investment? And if you have a kidney ready for transplant and 2 patients needing it, then all being equal, if one is 70 and 1 is 20 then id assume the 20 year old would be the one to get it, as they could potentially go on for another 60 years. Id assume all this is already happening though (albeit discreetly)

Doctors and HCPs are already tasked with making decisions based on the best interests of their patients, and if patients disagree they can get second opinions and appeal to the courts if necessary.

What people seem to asking for is for state level diktats to standardise care by age, economic consideration and whatever the current view of "quality of life" is.

And that is indeed a slippery slope demonstrated by pretty recent history.

I totally agree, that was my whole point - obviously rather too subtly phrased for you to understand - that's why I put 'drain on resources' in inverted commas. To me the OP was strongly implying that this is how she views our elderly population, a very dangerous way of thinking.

Its all very well worrying about how these things are worded but the fact is that when the number of economically inactive people in an economy starts exceeding those who are working and paying for them, that is a major problem unless you have a magic money tree.

The elderly are not a problem in themselves, we have to look at everything else that is happening, it's growing numbers of people too sick to work through obesity or mental health, asylum seekers and refugees all have to be paid for by people who are also facing rising costs of living and a lack affordable housing. I would be interested to think what you imagine a major problem to be if you think this isn't.

With regard very premature babies, I believe we already do that. The cut off is 24 weeks (I believe different cut off apply in different countries) below 24 weeks minimal help to survive is given. Do you have an opinion on this?

Well I don’t feel entitled to reduced taxes. Education and healthcare benefits the who,e of society. But I do remember when I was ttc in the 90s people who needed IVF were considered extremely selfish if they expected the NHS to pay for it. In fact I remember when I was trying to set up a local support group under the auspices of Infertility UK (Internet was in its infancy then) and asked my doctor’s surgery if I could display a poster on their wall they flatly refused. Infertility was not considered a healthcare issue at all then.

@Kendodd I don't have an opinion, other than that I am glad there are expert medicos (who are compassionate, I hope) who make medical judgements.

I was simply following the OP's logic, by applying an arbitrary set of criteria to the question of whether human beings should receive treatment and care. I used the OP's own words.

To be really clear, I think the OP's 'logic' and her question are both pretty inhuman. And extremely self-centred.

I hope the OP is not a medico.

@vivainsomnia , well, I’m already pretty ancient and have an absolute horror of getting so decrepit that I can’t manage my own personal hygiene and need help with ‘toileting’ as they like to call it. Plus I have seen both my MiL and FiL descend into the most pitiful states, thanks to dementia - which my DM had for around 15 years until she finally died at 97.

I have already had a very good life and would be entirely happy to pop off before any of that happens. Above all I would hate to turn into one of those monumentally selfish old people who expect their family to give up their lives to run around after them. Sadly I have known people who became like this, even though nobody would previously have imagined that they would.

And I absolutely hate the thought of whatever we hope to leave to dds and Gdcs, to make their lives easier, going in care home fees.

Hence my wishes about life-saving or life-prolonging treatments, in the event that I can no longer speak with full mental capacity for myself, made abundantly clear in my Health and Welfare Power of Attorney.

See my previous post. My great nan had a hip at 90 and died at 98, 2 weeks before her 99th birthday. Should she have just been left?

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER, there is absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to end your life in dignity when you decide it. DECIDE it being the key word.

No one should be deciding matters of life or death purely based on age when as the saying goes, age is only a number.

Healthcare is already rationed, that's reality. It just isn't done very honestly. I definitely won't change my mind. I don't understand the attachment to existing at all costs.

You'd refuse a replacement joint at 75+ if you fell and injured yourself but were otherwise OK?

Maybe if I had worded my question differently it would have been interpreted less emotively.

Am I being unreasonable to say that the advancements in medicine and healthcare have led to a decline in living standards for our society?

That can still be extrapolated to say I am in favour of not treating the disabled, sick and elderly if people want to take it that way - although that is not the case.

People can use reductive arguments to say I want to kill off elderly so my child can buy a house - to make an impact on social media.

The reality is - every public service is on its knees and getting worse. Professional working adults cannot afford homes. Sure there can be redistribution of wealth but if we all pay into a pension for 50 years and then claim it for 30, that is not just taking back what has been paid in.

If birth rate keeps falling because a lot of younger people are recognising that life isn’t looking that great in the future, while the % of non working population keeps rising, our societal model will not be able to sustain itself. It can’t be fixed by working even longer, it’s already horrendous that it is 67/68.

Clearly nobody can talk about these things out loud in real life, because what is the solution?

There is a similar debate around what the outcome of eradicating malaria will be. We have to strive to do that - because otherwise we are knowingly letting people suffer. However, there will be consequences in terms of over population, possible famine.

The really uncomfortable point is that we do need people to die. But where we have the medical ability to prevent these diseases, that is the moral and human thing to do. I just worry for where we will be in a few generations to come once we have cured everything

Am I being unreasonable to say that the advancements in medicine and healthcare have led to a decline in living standards for our society?

Yes. Because it's patently untrue and simplistic.

I agree. It is already rationed. So far, or at least I'd like to think, its rationed on 'most benefit' grounds, rather than financial cost (obviously a factor as well). Example being organ transplantation. You have a 20 year old and an 85 year old both needing a kidney, both in otherwise good health, who do you give it to? If both my 85 year old mother and eleven year old daughter were drowning and I could only save one, it's a complete no brainer to me who I'd save. Even if it wasn't my own daughter and some random eleven year old, I still think saving their life is more important than the 85 year old.
Another example, the NHS recently approved for use a drug that cost £3 million. Only approved for babies. If this drug could cure and reverse dementia, do you think we should pay that for every elderly dementia patient? I don't.

It is complete head in the sand to think we shouldn't ask such questions or to ask them is equivalent to killing elderly people. And if you think the world and the country doesn't value the elderly, have you been asleep for the last five years? Covid largely affected the elderly, and virtually the whole world shut down, at massive financial and emotional cost to the rest of us, to protect our elderly.

Oh and these questions are going to become much more pressing in future due to huge falls in birth rates. There simply won't be enough people to provide care.