Engineering and the Grim Reaper

If you design or construct bridges for a living the following paragraph is important.  If you develop assisted living centers it is important.  If you build hospitals it is important.  If you work on strategic planning it is important. 

It is one of those paragraphs that everyone should find important (from the New York Times, August 15, 2012 - America's Aversion To Taxes):

"The reason is not difficult to figure out: rich though we are, we can't afford the policies needed to improve our record.  The politicians in Washington all know that we face a long-term fiscal crisis.  By 2020, 70 million Americans are expected to be on Social Security, up from 45 million in 2000.  The ranks on Medicare will swell to 64 million, up form 40 million in 2000.  Virtually every economist knows that just maintaining Medicare and Medicaid benefits will require raising taxes on the middle class."

This is probably one of the biggest social, political, and economic challenges and opportunities the country faces.  How this  gets worked out will have broad ramifications for engineering.  Keep in mind we also have a technological issue that interfaces with the social/political/economic hurdles of an aging planet.  It is summed up perfectly in a headline in the current issue of Scientific American:

"How We All Will Live to Be 100"

The article, by Katherine Harmon, closes with the following paragraph:

"Even without any exceptional scientific breakthroughs in longevity and disease research, our plodding scientific progress - not to mention advances in health care and sanitation - continues to extend our life span.  Average life expectancy worldwide increases by three months every year.  That is not a bad return.  Even developed regions such as Europe continue to gain about two years every decade.  With luck - and more hard work - those living a century from now will consider our life expectancy pitifully short."

Extending the match between individuals and the Grim Reaper will fundamentally change many aspects of US society.  It will change the global community.  Engineering had better start thinking about these issues.