"We could, of course, handle this cost imbalance by draconian decisions about life and death, but that is probably a political (and maybe ethical) non-starter..

"We could, of course, handle this cost imbalance by draconian decisions about life and death, but that is probably a political (and maybe ethical) non-starter.." Well at least giving people the choice to terminate their lives in those circumstances should be permitted and doesn't seem too problematic. "I believe that it is pointless to increase the human lifespan unless the quality of life for the elderly is also increased." This is not very worrying because people working on these approaches seem convinced that it's not possible to increase lifespan without increasing quality.