Posted on 07/09/2013 11:15:43 AM PDT by Bob Ireland
For some years I have listened to Rush Limbaugh, and heard him picture Medicare recipients as some sort of ungrateful leaches sucking off of the public dole. He characterizes them as resisting having to pay a dime for their medical coverage.
Being a fan of Rush, I have tolerated this misguidance on his part and sent him e-mails [I am 24-7 member] trying to save him from being caught in a 'lie'. He has never responded to these e-mails - for whatever reason.
Then yesterday - Monday - he mentioned a story about the Congress considering a bill to make Medicare recipients pay 'a few pennies' for their medical coverage - and the bill going down to defeat. I simply cannot remain silent in the face of this total fabrication.
I have been on Medicare for 15 years. My Medicare Part B presently costs me a little pocket change short of $100 a month - a little less that $1,200 a year. That money is deducted out of my Social Security check before I ever receive it. That benefit offers to pay 80% of my allowable medical bills, and I am responsible for the other 20%.
In my case - since I look at government programs with a jaundiced eye - I have signed my Medicare obligations over to a private HMO [called an Advantage Plan]. However, Obama's health care plan has drained the Medicare treasury by hundreds of billions of dollars; therefore the future of the program is in question. In some states I understand the Advantage Plans have already been canceled. Many doctors and hospitals are trying to figure how to get free of Medicare since the Medicare payments are either delayed, diminished or missing altogether. I still cannot be sure my HMO will be part of Medicare next year.
BUT, back to the main theme of this article: How many FReepers pay $1,200 a year for their medical insurance? Probably some do; likely most do not. I am not complaining about paying for my health care - I voluntarily and happily pay the premium.
Furthermore, if it becomes a matter of saving the dollar from total collapse I would accept the cancellation of Medicare altogether. Just stop charging me $100 a month and send the program into the Bermuda Triangle. I have led a fruitful life. HOWEVER, under Obama's healthcare program, that cannot happen. My Medicare could be cancelled and I could be set with the old Indian squaw by the side of the road to waste away - but I would still have to pay my health care premium in order to provide health care for younger folk.
Would someone who can get through to Rush Limbaugh get these points across to him - if he is really interested - so that people can understand the truth about Medicare - not a bunch of myths and misrepresentations.
“Someone else is paying your way. Must be nice. “
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And his working years he paid for previous seniors.Poor argument.
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Interesting take, Bob.
From my point of view, MediCare is the best deal going on. My premiums are also around $100 monthly, plus secondary and prescription coverage.
Here’s the deal - health premiums outside of MediCare are much higher and it’s not just the profit element. The cost of services under MediCare exceed the premiums with seniors needing more and more services as they grow older. Having those on MediCare pay, for example, a fee to visit a Doctor would discourage visits in some cases and reduce costs overall. MediCare is simply too good a deal to survive, long term.
Actually, MediCare has no funds - money paid in has been spent and the funds that are paid in by younger workers is being spent by our generation. Basically, those that are paying in now will end up with nothing to draw from unless funds are taken from general tax revenue. MediCare is just another federal ponsi scheme, like Social Security.
I’m with Rush on this.
i just want to do my part for Obama the all powerful
You are sold an insurance policy and make payments for many years You go into the hospital for surgery and they say, “Sorry, you haven’t paid enough so no insurance. That is exactly what the young people are saying. Good faith doesn’t mean shit?
The solution, of course, is to finance the colossal shortfall. Poor plan, and we are already doing it.
Medicare is bankrupt. Most of us would LOVE to pay only $1,200 a year for a 80/20 plan.
Most of us pay FAR MORE than that today.
Having to pay a little more isn’t a crime.
Maybe if they’d quit giving away so much in Medicaid, then they wouldn’t bring this bill up.
Van Gough listeners...using one ear.
What kind of mythical insurance company can pay out many times more what it takes in in premiums? Only Uncle Sam by taxing others and printing money.
You weren’t actually paying any insurance premiums all those years, you were paying taxes (that have already been spent).
No one is forced to go on Medicare.
Most people I know pay way more for individual polices-our $10,000 deductible is $1500.00 a MONTH for the 4 of us, thanks to Obamacare, and my having had a malignant mole removed a few years back. Can't get covered at all on other plans, I've tried. THe state pre-existing plans provided under Obamacare are more than that.
You maybe have always worked for a school district or a large company and had your insurance subsidized, and you have no idea what the individual market is like out there. Under Obama care, even a young healthy adult like my 22 yo pays $120/ month, or $ 1440/ year.
As far as I can tell, he’s bitchin’ about paying too little for health insurance (and allegedly being told he gets it for free), a semantic point . . . presumably, he’ll be happy when he pays the market rate (or drops out of it altogether) like the rest of we peons.
Seniors must realize that their prosperity is being built on the backs of those who are struggling to form and provide for families right now. They are the future of our country. I know so many young families and they are being absolutely killed in this market. I find it disgraceful that so many seniors are so short-sighted and entitled.
Welfare = government transfers of money from tax payers to groups or individuals who do nothing in return for that transfer. Ag price supports, surplus purchases, ethanol subsidies, milk price “support”....etc are all just that. The guy or gal who farms 100 acres or runs 100 cows gets nada, zip, zero. The money goes to corporate farming operations like ADM. Kill it!
So I am just to go off and die? Who would give a 70 year old man with chronic illnesses insurance in a free enterprise system? Certainly no company that wants to stay in business. When Medicare was passed, health care was affordable for most people. Now, Even with healthy savings, one hospital stay and surgery would wipe me out
Medicare did that. In my wife’s country of birth, a total hip replacement costs $12,000 US at the best orthopedic hospital in Bangkok. Here, the same procedure costs $120,000 at best when you add all the associated costs. No one who is not rich can handle that. Conservatives and Progressives are not going to do anything with that.
The option most young conservatives suggest is “let the old farts pay their own bills”. Of course the compassionate progressives have death panels.
Time for us to pack up and move. No realistic choice. Obamacore will end up like the NHS in the UK and I know several UK citizens who moved to Chiang Mai for decent health care which is not available in the UK.
And how much you wanna bet that Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare will morph into one gigantic monster. Obamacare is destined to run short funds and guess which funds have “extra” money “just sitting around.” The politicians have been pilfering Medicare all along. Why not use Medicare and Medicaid to cover Obamacare's shortages and visa versa — sort of a shell game.
What matters is not what it costs for any individual for any given time period, but the entire covered population over a lifetime.
Of course, I've concluded your mind is made up and you aren't interested in any facts that don't support your hypothesis.
We should thoroughly reform the healthcare system.
Of course our elders should be taken care of, but we won’t get anywhere in reform if we continue with the fiction that Medicare as it is is funded by recipients past payments. It is a government entitlement that is unsustainable and only to a small degree funded by the previous payments of beneficiaries.
We need to radically remove third- and fourth-party payment mechanisms and get free market pricing back into healthcare delivery. Also, we need to recognize that the level of healthcare we all want, which was largely unavailable in past times, is very expensive. It is only because we are a wealthy society that we can afford it, and we need to put mechanisms in place to get people to be paying for themselves again.
But no, don’t go away and die—please!
As our premium has increased so greatly, I have considered going without many times.
I have come to the conclusion that facing the cost/benefit of medical care to ones life has been a part of human life since the beginning of time. There will come a day in most of our lives when we must consider the cost of care vs what money we have, and make a choice. Most people in the history of life, have also had to make it. Why should I be exempt?
I am not facing this situation currently, but I will in the future. I will face it with as much courage as I can muster, just like so many other people have had to in this world.
Please don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing you, but the Medicare and SS programs are over, given the debt we have, and we will all have to face that situation.
Medicare and Medicaid are two reasons health care costs so much. They add massive overhead and pay the least. You would be doing far better with a private plan and a private pay doctor if the government hadn’t already stuck its unconstitutional nose into all this. You would be able to afford a doctor for office visits and be able to afford major medical insurance.
This is a perfect example of the government screwing up something then providing a useless answer while also claiming things would be far worse without them.
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