If you have a television or a radio chances are you have heard about the aging baby boomer population and that you have also heard the fear that people have as to what this surplus of elderly individuals will do to the nation’s economy and healthcare. The fear is real and it is well founded. Never before have this many elderly people became eligible for the country’s programs like Social Security and Medicaid. Never before have so many elderly individuals retired at the same time. Because of this, people are worried as to what will happen.

Social Security

One of the biggest fears is that the Social Security program is going to crumble under the weight of the 3.4 million and counting baby boomers who will begin to collect their Social Security check. Calculations have shown that not enough money is going in today to keep the Social Security system afloat for more than ten years when it begins paying for the aging baby boomer population. What that means is that while the baby boomers will be getting back the money they put in, younger working people today could be paying into a system that will be completely defunct by the time they are ready to collect. So what is the answer to help both the aging baby boomer population and generations to come? No one quite has that answer yet. Some think that privatized social security is the way to go. Many people think that it creates a necessity of personal responsibility while others think it creates huge gaps for people to fall through. Most people realize that social security needs reform, but few have come up with realistic and logistically sound options for how to do that. With time running out for the aging baby boomer population, it is important that something be done with social security and quickly.

Health Care

Another scary part of the aging baby boomer population’s life is health care. A quick look at a baby boomer population graph on health care will show that while many are currently insured through private health care, nearly forty percent are already on government run healthcare. When the remaining percent of people become eligible for Medicaid, chances are they will start claiming their benefits. This means that the government will have several million more people to insure. However, even with Medicaid there are often huge bills and pricey prescriptions for the elderly. Thirty states have laws requiring adult children to pick up the tab of their elderly parent’s debt, and while these laws have not been enforced in recent years, it is likely this might start happening.