Operating Without a Heart

“A man’s not a man if he hasn’t got a heart.”  That was one of several memorable lines spoken at the public hearing that my wife and I attended last night.  I usually don’t write about local issues, preferring to think about more national or global ones in this space.   But we are dealing here in Frederick County with an issue that is a microcosm of a major issue facing the country.  The hearing we attended was over the proposed sale of a nursing home complex owned by the county for the long term care of poor elderly people in ill health.  The nursing home is the only such county-owned facility in the state; in that sense, it is unique.  The county has officially supported this facility and its predecessors for about 140 years.  The land for the facility was donated to the county in the 1870s for use in the care of the poor and elderly.  Its continuing maintenance is part of the deep ethical values of the county.  Even though the county is in a typically conservative semi-rural area, support for the facility has been reaffirmed by countless Boards of Commissioners over the years.  People protesting the proposed sale ranged from indigent patients at the facility to prominent bankers, lawyers, doctors and other members of the local establishment.  Of over 400 people at the meeting, only about 10 supported the sale.  Now a recently elected deeply conservative majority of the Board of Commissioners is proposing to divest the county of the responsibility, mostly, it appears on the ideological grounds that health care provision is not a business the county should be in.  No consideration was stated of fitting the proposed sale within a larger plan for meeting the needs of the poor and elderly.  At the end of the meeting, the Commission majority voted to proceed with the sale, despite the wide-scale protest, though there will inevitably be a variety of legal objections to be dealt with, including the obvious one that the sale conflicts with the stated purpose of the original property donation.

One of the protests made at the meeting, by as I recall a banker, was that the county is not a for-profit corporation, but an organization of the many to improve the lives of all, sometimes by the care for the needs of the few.  It was an eloquent statement of the larger issue.  As I’ve mentioned before, the nation is entering a silent crisis period when the baby-boomer generation is starting to grow old and retire without adequate financial resources.  The corporate pension structure has been so altered over the last 30 years, from fixed-benefit arrangements to IRA plus Social Security, that large numbers of those now approaching retirement age will find themselves at or near the poverty level. Studies show that average IRA levels plus Social Security are far from enough to guarantee a comfortable retirement. The average retirement account of those approaching retirement is about $100,000, producing a sustainable income of about $5000 per year.  We may see a return to the times before 1950 when the majority of those over 65 lived in poverty.  In the face of this, corporations are using the recession and the advent of more efficient computer and robotics technology to “down size” older employees.  There is a silent “downsizing” of an entire generation going on, as older employees are let go in favor of younger, less expensive workers and are finding new jobs impossible to obtain.  Retirement is often not by choice, and not at a time of the employee’s choosing.  To the corporation, the problems, health and otherwise, of retired employees are externalities to be ignored or minimized.  If government treats them the same way, they fall between the cracks.

Allowing large portions of the largest generation in the country’s history, all of them, by the way, voters, to fall between the cracks is bound to produce social turmoil.  But beyond that, it is a failure of social conscience and of thoughtful planning for the future.  The passionate defense last night by rich and poor alike of the nursing facility exemplified America’s social conscience at its best.  It is now up to government to live up to the ethical standard of its citizenry.  That responsibility extends from the county to the halls of Congress. Purely from a planning viewpoint, this country’s economy has run for the past 40 years on the consumption preferences of the baby boomer generation.  To convert that driving force almost overnight into a minimally consuming drag on the economy is foolish.  It amounts to choosing a continuing recession.  Both corporations and government share responsibility in this.  But it is government that explicitly is tasked “to promote the general welfare”, and it is government that must look beyond immediate cost cutting to the needs of the future. The impacts of the crisis will be felt across the nation and in the county.  At all levels, non-ideological planning is needed, not ideological grandstanding.  

A non-ideological case can be made for handling the health needs of the elderly poor by other than direct governmental management, just as non-ideological counter-arguments exist.  But there is no excuse for lack of thoughtful consideration of the growing needs of the poor, and how best to provide them.  Letting them “fall between the cracks” is a disastrous solution, both for them and for the country.  Whatever your ideology, they are a social issue which must be addressed.  The failure of local government last night was not just a failure of conscience – trying to operate without a heart – it was a failure of responsible planning.   It is the failure of politicians who truly have no regard for the future of the country, only for their own.  At the local and national level, it is time for such politicians to be “downsized.”