ABSTRACT
As the United States approaches the 21st century, the demographic imperative of its progressively aging population is driving evermore intense scrutiny of the health and health care implications of that shift. And especially as the bulge of post-World War II Baby Boomers, who tend to dominate the contemporary U.S. scene, themselves enter the second half of middle age (defined by us as 50-75 years), the economic implications of the cost of Social Security and Medicare for their parents now and themselves in the future progressively preoccupy our socioeconomic and political landscape. This preoccupation is appropriate because of the inevitable association between advancing chronological age and predisposition to the multiple, chronic, often progressive, and frequently disabling diseases of advanced middle and old age carries portentous implications for the viability of these publicly funded health and economic systems for retired Americans in the 21st century.
