So, let me ask you.
I know people, REAL people, old people who worked all their lives and tried saving a little money for retirement, who can't afford to both eat, and buy the prescriptions they need to maintain themselves healthy, so they make deadly choices daily.
What's your "conservative" solution to this problem?
I know some relatives with the same problems as well.
They should seek help from private organizations and charity organizations.
It is not the government's problem to solve.
What's your "conservative" solution to this problem?
The conservative solution to the problem of older folks or any folks who are incapable of providing for their own needs due to circumstance beyond their control is to provide for them.
In the case of the medicare prescription drug problem, the solution should have been to provide prescription drug cards to the 1.5 million seniors who could not afford the insurance on their own. Instead, we get a new entitlement that traverses these folks, middle class folks and upper class folks.
Times have changed in the past 40 years to where most of the wealth in this country is now in the hands of the elderly but we have managed now to subsidise much of that wealth by chopping into the paychecks of our progeny. Somethings wrong there.
What's your "conservative" solution to this problem?
How about not taking 7.65% of every dime they earn (matched by their employer that could be using that money to increase their pay) to put into a ridiculous pyramid scheme?
Face some facts. If you or I tried to create an "annuity" plan totally based on Social Secuirty or a "healthplan" totally based on Medicare, the federal government would arrest and prosecute us for fraud!