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.
You are right... because about 90% of the people on this thread are a way off subject and just chewing their own @ss.
I’d settle for him using the not small amount of influence he has with the public to put a stop to an insane drug war that isn’t working and scoups up lots of people who aren’t hurting anyone instead of crying to be exempt from the laws all us rabble are inflicted with.
Not me. Between my employer and I, we pay about 10x that. Are you trying to make a case for me to feel sorry for you? 'Cause you're failing.
We pay 15G a year.
Just as Bob and I paid for our parents' generation's Social Security benefits that most of them never put a penny into. An entire generation got a free ride based on FDR's socialist promises.
The Marxist plan to divide and conquer Americans is certainly working full-bore in this thread (young vs. old in this case.) The young here are kvetching about a program that's already being bled dry by a much worse prospect: Obamacare aka socialized medicine. It's disappointing to see so much energy and hatred being displaced from the true enemy (socialism.)
Thank you for taking the time, but you give me far too much credit. I have seen your remarks.
I am pointing out that the Medicare "premium" and attendant out-of-pocket costs are not reflective of the current market rates for insurance premiums or out-of pocket costs and the very substantial difference is paid by the taxpayer. If Medicare part B overages are not paid for with taxpayer dollars, I am willing to examine the proof.
I posted this thread to try to get Rush to stop saying I get the program for free... seeing the result, I see it was pretty much a waste of time... most people on the thread are incapable of reading or thinking.
I would run, not walk, to pay that rate. I was in that deep by April 1. I'm in for over twice that now, and nobody has even had thier checkups yet.
So sue Rush, or something.
You’ve been around here long enough to know that always happens. One idea leads to the next so that the original thread is unrecognizable. I’m guilty of that as well.
I posted the thread to try to get Rush to stop saying Medicare recipients get their benefits for free... Almost no one on this thread has been capable of understanding such a simple message. Instead I have been called stupid and a thief... hmmmm... perhaps they are right!
He didn't say it.
So you've wasted everyone's time arguing about something you pulled out of your posterior.
Can it be privatized and be self-funding?
If so then lets do that and it will no longer be political.
Because frankly, you came across as an ungrateful leech sucking off of the public dole.
Sucks to be you, and me, by extension . . . because I'm being asked to carry "your" Ponzi "investment" forward.
1rudeboy, great, succinct comment.
Bob Ireland and others who feel personally insulted by the great Rush Limbaugh's tendency over the years to recognize the WELFARE aspect of Medicare:
How much has Rush Limbaugh been forced to pay into MEDICARE over the year? The payment never caps! He's paid millions and millions! Do you not think he has they right to identify a program that steals millions of dollars from him while acting like it is an insurance plan a "LEECH" ?
Instead, because you take it personally, I can only conclude that you do not understand that Medicare is a welfare scheme funded by a Ponzi scheme that has the advantage of not having to con anyone to participate since the victims are forced to play the game by a government gun held to their heads.
Medicare is WELFARE even though most of its participants refuse to recognize it. A few of those with a government gun to their head have paid in more than they will get out of the plan. No big surprise, that's how insurance works, more how it was originally intended. However, on the average it promises benefits to its masses that it is not designed to fund by their payments, and as such it would have failed, but instead it became a PONZI SCHEME that is funded with a government gun to the heads of younger people plus obviously fake promises.
The unfortunate fact is that many older adults now feel ENTITLED to get everything the con-man promised, even though the jig is up and the con exposed. In any other context you would be fine to recognize the "leech" aspect of it and permit Rush to be Rush and dramatize it!
I think you have better battles to fight than trying to make Rush understand that you don't consider yourself a leech. There really are a lot of people with Medicare plus other subsided coverage who refuse to pay one thin dime on their own for anything even though they have paid in virtually nothing. That's who he's talking about, not you. He mixes things up for drama, sometimes may have mixed up Medicare and Medicaid, it's radio and it's fluid and it's unscripted, but he's helping us, not hurting us!
Medicare takes $1,198.80 a year out of my Social Security for health insurance. They take out $529.20 a year for my drug coverage. My supplemental insurance to pay for what Medicare doesn't, costs me $3,240 a year. That is a total of $4,968.00 a year I pay for health care and medicine, except I also pay a part of the cost of the medicine and I haven't added that up.
Rush does not know of which he speaks to say we pay nothing. Perhaps he will pay for me that $4,968.00 and my part of the medicine I also pay, so I will actually have free health care.
WE PAY to have Medicare (our only choice if 65 or older)to have doctor/hospital insurance, and WE PAY for the supplement insurance and WE PAY for the drug policy and WE PAY for the cost of medicine over what our policy pays.
I do believe you raised the issue with this thread. No?
You cannot be serious. Your money is gone.
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