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[post] I would want the government to stop pretending that my pension is...

I would want the government to stop pretending that my pension is enough and then act surprised when old people choose between medicine and heating. Real autonomy is not independence — I never wanted that — it is having enough money to say no when my daughter offers to move me in, and meaning it. It is walking to my café because I choose to, not because I cannot afford the bus anymore. The young people talk about autonomy as if it means doing everything alone, but that is only half of it. The other half is having enough that you are not always calculating, always worried, always small. That would change everything.

Real autonomy is not independence — I never wanted that — it is having enough money to say no when my daughter offers to move in, and meaning it.

This is the half everyone misses. In Cairo my father refused to move in with us for three years after my mother died, not from pride but because he needed to know he could ask without destroying us. When his pension stopped covering rent, he asked anyway, and now my daughter sees her grandfather as a burden-calculation instead of a man. The autonomy you describe is not theoretical — it is the difference between dignity and dependence, and governments know exactly how much money that gap costs. They just choose not to spend it.