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.
Check back in when you learn to read and write...
“news entertainment clown..”
Give him the hook!!
Research the birth certificate/college records and THEN we can listen
So . . . the most reliable voting-bloc in existence is not responsible for the mess that we, the voters, created?
Don't give me that BS. The Dems have played the "older" generation for suckers for decades.
I think you misunderstand the program.
Bob also paid into it all of his working life.
There is no Article 1 Sec 8 power for the FedGov to be running the program you are currently using.
As such, yes... You are a leach. Period. Not the nicest term, certainly, but you are receiving a benefit from an illegitimate source.
Regardless of what you are paying in, receiving out, personal need, etc...
Sorry, but that’s reality. It exists, it isn’t supposed to, and people like you will be used as counters by feckless politicians wanting to keep that ill-gotten power for themselves.
As described in a Cato Institute paper, in 2011, "Americans paid $274 billion in Medicare taxes and premiums. At the same time, the program paid out $564 billion in benefits. That amounts to a shortfall of roughly $290 billion. Looking into the future, even the most optimistic estimate by the program’s trustees puts Medicare’s future unfunded liabilities at more than $38.6 trillion. More realistic projections suggest the shortfall could easily top $90 trillion."
And now I am paying Bob. Funny how that works. /s
“...more conservatives than boomers..”
In Oz perhaps -—
I’ll start taking him seriously again once he gets tried, convicted and sent up the river like all of the other people who abuse drugs (which he called for in 1993) instead of crying about political persecution when the drug war came for him.
You completely misunderstood what he said. He was describing the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, the only entitlement he could think of that was ever repealed.
Yeah!
You OWE us the money, so fork it over!
Now go pay your (way too low) taxes, you ungrateful, greedy taxpayers!
Yeah, Rush is out of touch, but you’re paying pennies on your health insurance and most Medicare recipients now are taking several times out of the system more than they paid into it.
I'm in that same boat. I am also retired military and when I raised my right hand to take the oath several times over the 30 year period I was told I would get free health care for life. Well that was BS. When I turned sixty five I had to get into the medicare system or get my own private insurance. Medicare does in fact cost me 1200 per year too.
Your "Tricare for Life" becomes your supplement and essentially pays for everything Medicare doesn't.
Even though $1,200.00 per year is reasonable at 69 years old, the principle of being lied to by the military is what irks me.
Please learn to read... I said nothing of the sort.
It’s a simple fact that current Medicare recipients are getting much more out of the system than they put into it, which of course is unsustainable in the long term.
Very few people understand how expensive healthcare for a 65+ year-old is. In 2008, Medicare spent $10,188 per beneficiary.
http://www.medpac.gov/documents/Jun12DataBookEntireReport.pdf
see Chart 2-2
The Medicare Part B payment deducted from the Medicare beneficiary’s Social Security old-age welfare benefit is trifling by comparison: about $1200 vs. $10,188.
By the way, that $10,188 reflects monopsonistic Medicare reimbursement rates, which are very much lower than the prices charged to non-Medicare patients. The higher prices for non-Medicare patients cause private insurance premiums to be much higher than they would be in a free market. And, heaven help a private patient without insurance, because their unnegotiated “rack rates” for medical services are obscene.
Like you said: Cry me a river.
However, I don’t blame geezers for getting all the welfare benefits they can get their grubby hands on. I’m approaching geezerhood, and intend to do likewise. I didn’t vote for this system, I don’t consent to this system, but I’m not going to be a sucker.
He also really, really doesn't understand free market economics. He believes that if people demand lower prices, they are greedy, selfish freeloaders who want everything for free.
Apparently in the past 15 years FR has been invaded by people incapable of reading and understanding... you seem not to have a clue what I am talking about.
When you learn to read you will see that I said that.
“How many FReepers pay $1,200...”
I wish. Summing it up for my family of three, our insurance, including a lousy dental plan, a lousy vision plan, (nothing like what you get with Medicare,) and an additional plan with Colonial to cover lost wages, the bill comes to $9206.40, and that is only 40 percent of the cost. The employer pays an additional 60 percent that is deducted in the form of lower wages. But that isn’t all. Medicare takes out an additional $640.38 per year and the employer pays the same, coming out of wages. We also have $30 dollar copay, and a $300 dollar copay for labs, not to mention other things we still have to pay. I’d say you are doing pretty good.
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