Socialized Medicine, Logan's Run, and Cutting Costs

Remember the story in Logan's Run? Anyone over 21 or 30 (depending on whether you are reading the book or watching the movie) has to submit to being killed to preserve resources for younger people. There is a type of special agent called a "Sandman" whose job is to hunt down and kill anyone that doesn't want to submit.

My question is: Who is going to be the Sandman?

Maybe the government could use the Bloods and the Crips. They wouldn't be called "Sandmen". Instead they could be known as "Euthanasia Coordinators" to convince old people to kill themselves so the rest of us wouldn't have to waste precious resources on them.

I can see the LWM headlines now: "100,000 more old people decided to take their own lives last month to save their children from higher taxes for healthcare after speaking with "Euthanasia Coordinators. Interestingly, all of them shot themselves in the back of the head with handguns. In some cases they shot themselves several times."

Maybe instead of the Bloods and Crips the government could hire MS13 to take care of things. In that case instead of old people shooting themselves in the back of the head they could chop themselves up with machetes.

After that, to save costs 9-1-1 could start asking about victims ages before deciding the priority of sending the police, fire department, or EMS.

The conversations could go something like this:
Operator: 9-1-1 Emergency
Caller: A man has fallen down. His face is white and he's holding his chest.
Operator: How old is he?
Caller: What!!? He needs an ambulance!! I think he's having a heart attack.
Operator: I need his approximate age.
Caller: Maybe 65.
Operator: Ok. We'll have someone there within the next 4 hours. Try to keep him calm.

Maybe we could all have RFID tags implanted in our bodies so that EMTs could scan everyone at the scene of an accident or disaster and put anyone past a certain age at the back of the triage line. For that matter every newborn could be implanted with a chip that would record the cost of every medical service that person used during their life. Healthcare providers would read that data before providing any service. When you reach some limit service providers would no longer provide treatment.

This could work out great. Preferred groups like ACORN and union members would have higher limits than normal peons. Of course government officials and their families would not have a limit.

The future's so bright I've gotta wear shades.