Elderly & in the way?

Re: Andrew Lustig's article on Medicare costs versus other social needs ("In Denial," December 19, 2003). A December 27, 2003, article in the New York Times reports on Philipp Missfelder, a German youth leader who claims that there is a "systematic abuse of Germany's welfare rules." Missfelder advocates curtailment of hip operations for the elderly and of other hugely expensive procedures for those over sixty-five, many of which could be unnecessary for the patient, but profitable for the orthopedic surgeon, the hospital, and the medical bureaucracy.

In the United States, medical care consumes more than 14 percent of our Gross Domestic Product, an amount equal to the total economy of booming Ireland. Increasingly unemployed young people are inheriting their parents' debts and can be expected to someday rebel. The old vote; the young don't. Guess who gets the goodies regardless of merit, and who may soon find themselves the target of a generational rebellion.

ROBERT C. RHODES

Queens Village, N.Y.

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