Despite the fact that old people are mathematically closer to death than the rest of us, they just keep clinging to life—and taxpayer dollars. Finally, that may be changing. But the olds are living longer than ever. Thanks, jerks!

One consequence of the new health care legislation: less generous medical and Social Security plans for the elderly, in order to help pay for the new health insurance that will cover millions of previously uninsured younger Americans.

About time, no? Every medical "expert" talks about how wasteful it is to spend a huge percentage of a person's lifetime medical costs in last few worthless years of their lives, but nobody wants to be the one to tell grandma not to get that eighth hip replacement. Now that we're finally "pulling the trigger" and taking away health care for the elderly for the good of everyone, it would be nice if the olds did their patriotic duty by shuffling off quietly somewhere, never to be seen again.

But no! I guess that would be too much to ask from the monumentally selfish generation that just won't stop accepting medals for winning WWII. Sadly, "the number of centenarians is increasing quickly-by 32% in just the past five years in the U.S." the WSJ reports. Gerontologists say that the number of "supercentenarians"—people 110 years old and over—is not increasing too much, which I guess is a silver lining, for the health care system's sake, but it's hardly enough to offset the unpatriotic prospect of entire "villages" made up of old people, getting older every day, never getting younger, making obscene demands on our already-busy prescription drug industry.

Think of someone else for once, "Greatest Generation."

[Pic: Getty]