Medicare

I've been trying to figure out how Medicare makes any sense for the state. Why maintain a program to keep old people alive and healthy after they are no longer of any use to the state? As far as I can tell, the costs of doing this likely outweigh the taxes that old people contribute. Maybe having their parents and grandparents dependent upon the state in this manner makes younger people beholden to the state. Maybe this program is valuable for maintaining the illusion that the state exists for the benefit of its subjects instead of the other way around. These are all good reasons, up to a point, for such a program, but the potential skyrocketing costs associated with demographic changes should make us revisit it.

Perhaps the state should invest in a propaganda campaign designed to remind old people that they, too, are expected to sacrifice for the good of their country. It is their patriotic duty to die if they become ill and require expensive treatment.