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By Elizabeth Older
/ Illustration by Philippe Lardy
If we could calculate the place and time of a natural disaster threatening to cause unprecedented injury and death, we no doubt would take action to protect ourselves and limit its impact.
In the United States today, we are facing such a threat. It won't be followed on the Weather Channel, but rather in medical offices and hospitals across the country. The largest population bulge in America's history is about to hit the health care system like an enormous tidal wave, as millions of baby boomers flow into the age range ripe for developing cancer and other diseases.
So far, no flood walls have been raised, no action plan put in place. But health care experts see the rising tide, and they're trying to get a handle on what will be needed to deal with the overflow of baby boomers growing older.
"The problem is that nobody seems to be responding to get ready for this," observes Raymond N. DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., and director of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. "An analogy is the Katrina disaster. These people are going to have a lot of needs to be met."
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