No economically feasible?
Retirement homes employ nurses, janitors, doctors, other staff. Old people buy cars and they need food too.

Well, the elderly that are still able to do stuff don't have to die. Some seniors volunteer and stuff. They are still useful. If all elderly people that were capable of it volunteered, people would see that the face of volunteers is old and they would stop thinking of the elderly as leeches but rather contributors.

I think we should let nature take its course with the elderly. Our bodies are designed to self-destruct once we can no longer contribute to our species. I think after a certain age we should stop artificially keeping old people alive, via pills or machinery. Nature will take its course. It should be up to the individual to keep himself alive. If you excercise and eat well you can live well into your 90s, on average.

personally, id enjoy the ability to live as long as i can

"WTF??? OMG!!! My crystal is flashing!!!"

this isn't a Logan's Run type world we want to bring upon ourselves....

Life will live.. elders teach us about our pasts and give guidance from experience. I saw an elder on the subway the other day... 94 years old... his brother 104... he said that he still works and is very active.

Here's a rhetorical question -- Do politicians like Richard Lamm have a duty to be blood sucking leeches of the American public?

I believe that they refer to it as a "Job" and we pay them for it.

Which one of us is the stupider???

O.K...y'know...I really could've gone the rest of the day without having to think about that. :(

Wow, that is an extremely selfish, ageist, and irresponsible viewpoint against the elderly. Babies are also dependents and can't work and also drain resources. Sometimes they are struck by illness, yet we expend every effort to save their lives. Should we toss them aside as well? The whole argument makes it sound as if people are such a terrible burden, and it's not. If this is something I get to look forward to in the future, I'll do my damnest now to make sure that this sort of madness doesn't come to pass. So much for compassion! Self sacrifice is one thing, but taking the lives of others into your own hands is simply criminal.

I was talking with someone from work about this tonight. I agree that when someone is all but a vegetable and past the age of 60 (or so) its not really worth the ntenth thousands of dollars spent to keep them alive everyday. This money should be given to schools. Think about it this way: We could either pay to keep grandma in a nursing home, where she hates it and is treated like shit, or we can put lil billy through med school, where he can learn how to prolong the lives of others. Hmm.. tough choice...

I assume that the Governor of Colorado, Richard Lamm will be oh so willing to commit himself when he reaches a pre-determined age.

The suggestion that the elderly have a duty to die is stupid and discriminatory.

I don't think that it wouldn't be far from the truth to speculate that Richard Lamm needs a wakeup call to what's going on outside his own circle.

I'm glad to see that for once I actually agree with the general community here.

No, the Elderly do not have a duty to die.

That is totally absurd. Now the question that seems more relevant is do we as a community have a duty to care for the ones that have not planned to take care of themselves. Normally I would say No, we don't but there's a factor that makes this oh so complicated: Social Security.

Social Security is a horrible pyramid scheme not only set up by the government, but also forced upon everyone weather they like it or not, and also weather they saw thru it or not. Most of the resentment of the elderly probably flows from the huge amount of Social Security money that's being taken from the population and given to them. But the real issue is that they had the same crap pulled on them. Further, It was carefully explained to them that because of Social Security they wouldn't need to save for their retirement, it was being done for them.

We as a society got them into this pickle, so it is possible that its our responsibility to get them out. I don't know, its a hard question for me to answer. Its also worth observing that more people are older now by both numbers and percentage than ever before. It may not even be a question of "should we take care of our elderly" but "can we take care of our elderly"

No matter how you cut it though, offing them for financial reasons is pretty immoral.