Setting limits: a response.

Setting Limits: Medical Goals in an Aging Society was published in 1987, and immediately incurred considerable criticism because of its contention that age-based health care rationing could become necessary in the future as the baby boom generation aged and retired. That argument was considered to be ageist, discriminatory, and dangerous, and the ensuing debate generated a large number of books and articles. A response is offered to the criticisms, suggesting that we will not be able to evade the problem as easily as some critics have proposed, and that an age-limit proposal should be compared with other unpleasant choices, not with an ideal world.