I've Got Mine!

So far I have not collected a dime off Medicare although I have been on their rolls for about two years.
We have had this National Health for older people since 1965 and I have paid more into this system than Social Security.  Can you imagine the price of Private Insurance at an older age with all the aches and pains and the pre existing conditions of just having grown older?  It is about $1,200 per month, if you can get it.  Most Americans are happy to have Medicare, finally to retire and get out of paying such high prices for medical insurance.  It is a great system.  Although as a whole the USA ranks low for quality health care in the world, after we reach 65 and get on National Health, we rank #1.
   I, personally, have no need for it.  Now at least.  I am glad it is there.  It is reassuring that it will be there for when I need it.  I have been to foreign countries where the older people are pretty much thrown to the streets, beggars in rags.  They say a society can be judged by how well they treat their elders and the children, the very young, the old, the weakest among them.
   I sense a certain meanness to people who would not expand our National Health.  We have proof that it works for those using Medicare, so "it won't work" is not much of an argument.  We know it works for Veterans.  I don't understand the apprehension of expanding this system.
   The system we have is broken.  Businesses can not afford to provide health insurances for their workers.  Hospitals can not afford to provide free medical emergency services for those who drop in and use the hospitals are their primary care.  Health care in USA is 18% of our Gross Domestic Product, the highest of any nation.
   "Obamacare" is far from perfect and the policies that are being offered are not very good.  In fact, for this first year, I have advised my own daughters to pay the fine rather than to sign up for a nonfunctional insurance policy, but I am glad there is a fine to pay.  I am glad we have started this process.  It is the Law now and I am glad of that.  The issue now should be how to improve it.
    There is a huge Philosophical Issue here:  Individual Freedom Vs Societal Responsibility and it is OK to take a stand on this issue but you can't go back and forth.  If you are against National Health you should burn your Medicare card!  Do not go to the emergency room without cash in hand or a private insurance card.  Do not take prescription drugs that were developed with Government funding.  Go live on the pond like a hermit and I will respect that position.  To accept aid from living in a society and not wanting to share this with others is just plain mean.
   I wouldn't mind the other extreme, seriously.  I have never received food stamps, unemployment, housing assistance, free medical care or any other government service.  I would have to give up my monthly Social Security Check and that would be difficult.  After just four years I am receiving more than I have ever put in.  You are too, that is the way it works.  It would be a harsh world.  Beggars and cripples and the ill on the streets.  I would probably become a gun advocate and live in fear.  I've got mine and have to live out my days worrying about someone taking it away from me.  That wouldn't be nice.  I can imagine a better world.  Why not work in that direction?

I am Against "The Affordable Care Act"

Yes, I really am!  Not because it is forced upon us, many good things are forced upon us because it is the price of living in a society.  I don't want the independence and isolation of failed States like Somalia.  The Affordable Care Act is a health system instigated and supported by the Insurance Companies of America and it is purely for their benefit.  Have you read any of the Policies that are being offered?  They are all bad policies, no wonder our Congress wants to be excluded!  Most of them have a $5,000 deductible (or even more!) and 20% or more copay!  This means they won't pay a dime until you come up with five thousand dollars FIRST! and 20% each time!  Lots of people can't do this and if you don't it won't cost the insurance company a dime!
   I have Private Insurance and it costs $1,200 per month!  That is a lot of money and I don't pay it all.
Lucky me, the company where my wife works pays $1,000 per month and we pay the $200.  But someone is still paying and many companies simply can't afford the thousand or so each month for their employees.  my wife's company charges higher prices for their services so in reality, YOU are paying for my insurance and I thank you for that!
   I had Cancer about four years ago, stage "4" and gone now but at a total cost of $130,000!  20% of that would have cost me $26,000 which I didn't have.  Without this $26,000, under The Affordable Care Act, the insurance companies would pay nothing.  I had good insurance, paid a total of $1,000 and they paid the rest.
   That is what we should all have.   Maybe the Affordable Care Act is a step in the right direction but it is a baby step indeed.  I have many Canadian Cousins and they have real National Health Care there.
One cousin had major back surgery and another had serious cancer treatment and neither had any medical bills to pay!   I would like a system like that.
   

30 Times

Yes.30 times the House Republicans have voted to repeal Obama care and not once for the job creation bill.Voted against getting health insurance if you have preexisting conditions. Voted against adult children allowed onto their parents insurance until age 26.  Voted against reduced priced reduced prescriptions for Seniors. Voted against women. and kept their own Cadillac Insurance policies!!  Voted against cost reducing insurance for everyone and provided no alternative policy!
   So, here is my proposal:  If you vote against Obama care why not be consistent and vote against Medicare also?  There are too many people in the world, we all know that.  The sick, the frail, the weak and the poor are deficits to society.  They drag us down and contribute nothing.  Maybe Hitler had it right, round them up and get rid of them!  People struggling with minimum wage jobs, working hard and complaining?  Throw them on the wagon too!  What is the Republican plan?
   Frankly I am in favor of Obama care because I am a conservative!!!  It was an idea initially started by the Republicans and implemented by Romney himself in Massachusetts and contains the thought that if we all contributed then medical care would be less expensive.  Obama care will SAVE a trillion dollars over the next ten years.  There are government subsidies for those who cannot afford the cost.
   As it is now emergency rooms are used as the primary care for poor people.  This can cost thousand's per visit and we are paying for it now.  What is the Republican Plan to improve this situation?  Maybe all people who visit the emergency room who don't really need it should be shot?  I rather like that idea and it would create more jobs!
   50% of Americans don't even know about the Supreme Court decision on health care.  Probably 80% don't give a crap.  Pretty sad for a country that spends trillions of dollars fighting for freedom (?) and we don't even follow what is going on, don't give a crap.  More interested in sound bites than understanding.
   The Republicans will do NOTHING to make Obama look good, certainly no infrastructure rebuilding, certainly no jobs bill and they won't even entertain their OWN idea on National Health!
   I wonder what will happen?  How we will vote next November?  More years of the failed Bush policy?
A Nation lead by its Corporations?  Oh boy!  We will get what we vote for, what we deserve, that is for sure.  Cutting government programs and austerity?  Yes, let's be like Greece!!!  Or Ireland or Portugal or Spain!  They will show us the way!  I am amazed how easily we are persuaded to vote against our own interests, how easily we can be led and how lazy we have become.

Lowering the Cost

of Health Care should be easy.  Diamonds are only valuable because the industry controls their access and creates a lot of hype around their worth.  I have a friend who went back to school simply because she got a free ride, a government grant.  She is taking "art" classes and having the time of her life.  It is all BS and will lead to no job and we are paying for it.  My neighbor has been on unemployment for well over a year and doesn't even try to find work.  Why should she?  She has six more months of vacation!  My point is that we are paying for the wrong people to go to school or at least paying for the wrong subjects to be studied.
   If we need more Doctors or more Engineers, that is what we should be paying for.  Find the weak side to this economic problem and fill it.  We have laws in effect to protect the Capitalism of medicine.  For instance, only so many MRI's per population, so they remain expensive and profitable.  I can get an MRI for my dog for less than $500.  If we had more machines they would simply cost less.
   Maybe if we were to subsidize Doctor's training, and scientists, and chemists and the manufacturing of medical equipment, then these costs could be lowered?
   Some of the costs are just absurd and we pay them out of fear.  A Colonoscpathy  can cost $2,500 and takes 20 minutes!  That might be looked into.
   The real reason Social Progress always moves at a snail's pace is that we can't get over the concept that "some people are not deserving".  Think about that.  This is true all over the world and in almost every culture.
Deep down inside we only like human beings who are successful.  We will create obstacles to separate "them" from "us".  It is the reason for the caste system in India and it is the reason for poverty in our own country.
For thousands of years we believed in the "Divine Right of Kings" and the left over of this is somehow a belief that the wealthy are more deserving, more virtuous, closer to God.  It is stark raving mad that we might choose a multimillionaire who has contempt for the lower/middle classes to be our President!  I would love to know more about the psychology of this!  He can't be all bad though, he began Obama care before Obama did!
   The bottom line is we want what little we may have and it is difficult to believe the government is out to help us.  The situation will never get better without a discussion.  If you have no opinion someone else will impose theirs upon you.  You can count on that.  So I keep reading and studying, examining both sides and I am not afraid to listen.  Curious.

Okay For Me!

I'm all right, Jack, thank you very much!  I have a great Health Insurance Policy.  Costs me ten bucks to fill a prescription, and $20 to see a doctor.  All the testing and whatnot is free!  If I should ever spend a thousand bucks in a year then everything after that is free!  My $130,000 Cancer battle cost me exactly a thousand bucks.  Why should I want to change anything?
   My Doctor tells me that the situation will get a lot worse.  There are not enough Doctors in the pipeline to replace those who will be retiring soon.  Baby Boomers are a growing segment of the population and there won't be people in the medical profession to care for us!  Hospitals are loosing money because people are losing their insurance.  You can't operate a business for very long if you are in the red.  They will raise prices at the same time as insurance companies reduce benefits.  Across America hospitals are going out of business daily.  It is the "Law" we have always had.  Hospitals have to treat patients whether they pay or not, so they raise prices on those who do pay to cover those who don't.  We have the only system in the world where sick people with money pay for sick people without money.
   Here is the deal for me.  I have been to very poor countries, seen beggars on the streets with broken arms and open wounds, seen what it is like to have the bottom tier treated like dirt.  I can see in our own country how the Middle Class is falling over a cliff, stressing and so close to the edge.  50 Million people have no health insurance.  Not only is that an embarrassment, we pay for their health care should they need it, and it seems the poorer one is the more they need it.
    What I have a difficult time understanding is we have National Health care NOW!   If you are 65 or over we have Medicare and it works pretty well.  Nothing is perfect on the planet but as a direction Medicare works pretty well.  I think I read somewhere that it has a 7% administrative fee which is incredible for a government agency!  If we expanded Medicare it would be better and cheaper for everyone.  I don't understand the problem???  Are we afraid of "Death Panels"?  Hey, I was closer to death than most of you have ever been and I will tell you when you get that close you wouldn't be afraid of death panels!  It is the "Life Panels" I would be afraid of.  To spend millions of dollars for four more months of pain and agony is crazy!
Did you know that 50% of medical costs in the U.S. is spent by just 5% of the people?  Most of Medicare's costs are spent on the last year of your life.  You think this is a problem now just wait until the Baby Boomers get a little older!  If one chooses this route, heroic efforts and tied to tubes there is always private supplemental insurance you  could buy.  Personally I wouldn't.  Fast and furious, that's me!
   In reality there are probably several ways to solve this problem.  Taiwan until two years ago had our system, or lack of system I should say.  They actually spent some effort studying health care in several countries before choosing their own, a single payer system that is working well for them.  Why can't we do this?
   I don't wish cancer upon anyone but I guarantee you would want a different system if you got it.  Mine was "cheap" to cure (and it is still gone!!!), over $200,000 is more normal.  Even people with "good insurance", covering 80% will still leave you with a $40,000 bill.  The saddest story I can relate to you is the guy who has a good job with great benefits discovers he has cancer.  In the middle of treatment he becomes too sick to work and loses his job and his benefits, no health insurance. Next he loses his house and if he runs out of money mid treatment he is kicked out of the program.  Yes, this happens all of the time!
   There will be no cures to our system unless we can agree there is a problem.  Can we at least do that?
Maybe one by one we could identify what is wrong and agree with a method of improvement?
   I'm okay and I don't give a crap for me.  I worry about my friends.  I worry about my daughters. And I wonder why we don't have it within us to make this a better world?  Seriously, why can't we figure this out?

50 Million Have None...

Obama care was first proposed by the Republicans as a method allowing each of us to pay our fair share towards the spiraling cost of medicine.  It has been implemented in Massachusetts by then Governor Romney,
the current front runner of the Republican Party for President.  Both the Democrats and the Republicans know we have a huge problem with our National Health System in the United States.  The problem is we do not have one.  It seems to be a difficult discussion and it shouldn't be, everyone knows there is a problem.
   I suspect a lot of it is political.  Republicans do not want the Democrats to have any credit even though what the Democrats proposed was a Republican idea!   And I suspect there are people who would oppose anything Obama said simply because he is black.
   The Supreme Court is entertaining this discussion now:  would it be legal to force us to have insurance?  I admit I do not understand this argument.  We are forced into paying for Medicare from our very first job. Aren't we glad we have it now?
   The math is very simple.  If everyone paid into the system then health care would be less expensive and everyone would be covered.  I don't understand an argument against this? The ideal thing in life is that everything would be free but that is not likely to happen.  It is nice to be against National Health Care, nice until you need it anyway.  Until you get cancer or need a knee replacement or find yourself in a serious accident.
I have great insurance and my being in favor of National Health will just cost me more money.  I do not need it for me.  I want it because I live in a Society and I enjoy healthy people around me.  I want it because Hospitals will go out of business without it and the best insurance in the world won't be of much value if there are no hospitals to provide the care.  One of the reasons our health care keeps getting more expensive is that they keep raising our rates to cover the uninsured.  Sort of like retail stores raising their prices to cover theft.
   The funny thing is that I am in favor of National Health Care because I am a Conservative!

More Political Crap...

   If the economy were bustling we wouldn't be having the National Debt Discussion.  We have an official unemployment rate of close to 10% and an unofficial one of closer to 20%.  Many people have jobs beneath their skill levels, working for less than they are used to.
   It would be easy to turn this post into a comedy and put the entire blame for our National Debt upon these people.  The unemployed are not paying taxes and that is the problem!
   It is all a vicious circle.  The farther down one is, the more beaten and desperate, the less you have to spend.  American business is being hurt because they do not have enough customers.
   We can not turn back the clock and return to five cent coffees and 10 cent telephone booths.  We have never really been in this position before, not this bad, not this long.  Congress seems to have its own agenda and has no sight, no feel of consequence, no real understanding of economics or how money works.
   Sometimes I wish they were made up of more average people, more similar to the Americans they are supposed to represent.  When they made a law it would also apply to them.  For instance, if 40% of Americans have good health insurance, well then, 40% of our congressmen could have good health insurance.  As they discovered a method of increasing this percentage maybe to include all Citizens, then they too could have what we have.  How about unemployment between sessions of Congress?  Not working?  don't get paid!  That is what we do.  I think a gymnasium in a workplace, like our Congress has, is an excellent idea... if every workplace had one!
   They have lost total touch with Reality and don't know the price of a loaf of bread!  They don't represent me.  They have absolutely no clue about Economics.  You do not improve a situation by making less money available and that is all there is to that!
   "Hell-o! is anyone there?"  Is anyone discussing the option of generating more money?  Making something more efficient?  Maybe keeping more of our money here at home, not sent overseas and not stock piled into off shore bank accounts?  Somehow spread out a little more equitably so it could be spent?
Every time money changes hands it is taxed.  Every time it is stock piled it remains stagnant, safe, secure, off
shore and not taxed.  When it is invested in China we build up their economy.
   It sounds so altruistic to cut back.  In the laws of economics it is absolutely the wrong thing to do.  It is really simple:  more begets more and less begets less.  Our situation can get much worse.
   The idea of borrowing and putting a debt on our children, and now grandchildren is of course repugnant.
Sometimes borrowing can be profitable.  Businesses do it all the time.  We do it for major purchases, for a house or car and in our country for medical requirements.  There is always a risk.  That gets put into the equation.  It is all mathematics.  Some things we borrow for generate wealth and other things go down the drain.
   "Hell-o! is anybody there?"  I want some answers.  Our little skirmish in Lybia caused France to run out of ammunition after three days!  I wonder what their military budget is?  I know what ours is.  We have the largest in the world, more than all other countries combined!  Okay, I am not here saying this is good or bad.  I am just wondering what we are getting for our money?  Is it creating more jobs, more wealth? or is this money down the drain?  Money that might be better spent here, or money that shouldn't be borrowed in the first place?
   I don't know.  The older I get the less I know.  I know I am being lied to by both political parties.  I know they are playing with me.  They are both appealing to my emotions and neither think I am capable of making a decision based on the facts, just the pure science of economics and a sense of fair play.
   What I do think is that Congress should be a part time job, half a year at most.  The other half they should get a real job.  An "average job" for an average wage.  They should work hard and live off their wages.  Just like we do.

Billions and the National Debt!

     Yesterday I was talking (off the top of my head) about personal economics and was referring to hundreds and thousands of dollars.  That is "chump change" (what you pay a boxer to lose a fight on purpose); the real issue is in Millions and Billions of Dollars.  Can you count that high?  Personally I think it is pretty exciting when someone can earn this kind of money and I would like to think they worked really, really hard for it.  If I just weren't so lazy, then maybe I could get into this part of the American Dream too!  Maybe if I slept less and got another job?  Or went back to school and learned something useful?  I realize that a million bucks isn't what it used to be.  It is, after all, only $500 per hour!  Some CEO of Google just received $100,Million dollar bonus for this past year.  It was a good year for him and I am sure he worked extra hard.
That would be $50,000 dollars per hour!  Doesn't sound like a lot when put that way.  I saw on the news last night that a Wall Street Banker made FIVE BILLION DOLLARS last year, a huge improvement from last year when he only made $4,000,000,000 Dollars.  Five billion would be about $125,000 PER HOUR, maybe anyway, I get lost in the zero's.
     It takes 100 thousand people, each earning $50,000 a year to make Five Billion, that is a whole city full of people each making pretty good money.
     The difference in Tax Revenue is pretty big.  This "city worker" would be taxed at about 35% and to that you would have to include his Social Security Tax, his share and his employers shared being about 15%.That would be about (this math is killing me!) 650 MILLION DOLLARS!!! for the City Workers.  The guy who made five billion paid NOTHING!!! and he didn't pay 35% either, only 15%
     I think making Millions and Billions, maybe even a Gazillion Dollars would be pretty cool. This is America, right?  and if you can figure out how to do this without going to jail, well then more power to you!
But I am in favor of the same tax rate for everyone for everything.  This is no kind of punishment or a tax on the wealthy.  I am sure they have expenses, legitimate reasons for their deductions.  I am only saying that if they were taxed at the same rate as everyone else then we wouldn't have a National Debt and the Social Security Fund would have a surplus.
    In order to reduce the National Debt you only have two choices: Reduce Spending or Increase Taxes.
The Wars are our biggest expenditures and if you add to that the cost of taking care of our men and women in uniform who return broken and in pain, you are talking trillions of dollars there.  Taxes are simple and you can get this money from wherever you want to.  We could tax bread so even the poorest of the poor would have to pay. Or, we could make taxes more equal, say, after the first $30,000 everyone would pay the same percentage on everything. Or, we could admit that it is only in our society where we have a certain reverence for greed and wealth, that it is even possible to make FIVE BILLION in ONE YEAR, and just bump these people a little tiny bit, say a 2% extra for wealth tax.  Then the country would have a surplus.
    We live in a Democracy and these issues are up for voting all the time. The Social Security Tax applies to the fist $116,000 of earned income, that means wages.  The guy who made $5,000,000,000 paid NOTHING because his money came from "Capital Gains".  The google guy who only made $100,000,000
paid NOTHING for the same reason.  Their tax rate is 15% and our tax rate is 35%.
    The National Debt has to be paid down or China will own us, it is that simple.  All of this is simple math.
The guy at the corner store buying his dinner with food stamps or who is on public assistance is the "chump change" to all of this.  He is irritating because we work so hard and maybe he doesn't, but he is a diversion and represents pennies to this problem.  We see him every day and it is a thorn in our side but he is not the issue.  On a pie chart he is not even a slice.  The biggest piece of this pie is the servicing of our National Debt, like making minimum payments on a Visa card, it just gets bigger and bigger.
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The Socialist Approach

What the heck is this anyway?  I mean in America, land of the free.  I am not a socialist, let me be clear about that.  I am way too much in favor of descent, have often mentioned here that I wouldn't join a group that had such low standards as to accept me in their membership.  I like a thousand ideas on the table and after sifting through them I make up my own mind.  I think all ideas need to be expressed without labels which only raise the hairs and befuddle the issues at hand.
     Historically a government has two main jobs and in our country it has further tasks that we give it. These jobs are to protect us and to redistribute the wealth.  That's right.  That is why we have commerce laws and taxes and certain rules and regulations.  You can't rob a bank; you have to actually get a job and earn your money.  That's the law. In a real socialist society the "people" might actually rob this bank.  It has happened and it just never seems to work.  We are really robbing this bank right now, stealing from future depositors, our very children.  Our National Debt has grown to over $40,000 for each man, woman and child living in the United States.   If you want true freedom and responsibility this debt could be transferred to each of us personally, just added to our Visa cards!
   I fear the word, socialism, we all do and that is why it is used.  We imagine it with a police state and Stalinist tactics of oppression.  But let me tell you things we have now and see how you feel about them.
Economic Socialism is nothing but shared responsibility.  We share the benefits and we share the risks.
Have you been in a store recently where the employees are wearing badges that say something to the effect:
"I am an owner of this employee owned store"?  We have grocery stores, hardware stores and even variety stores in my town where they wear these badges.  That is socialism.
    If you don't use that emotional word and just think about the shared responsibility around you, you will see we have socialism everywhere.  Unemployment, Food cards, and any public assistance is a method of redistributing the wealth.  It is nice to think we do this from the kindness of our hearts, that it is the right thing to do when someone is down on their luck.  Historically that is garbage.  We do it to prevent riots,  as an alternative to robbing banks. Go back to the Great Depression in the twenties when we didn't have these "safety nets" and read what happened, or in the 1890's when cities were burnt to the ground.  Desperate people do desperate things.
    We have National Health Care, and a lot of it, just not everyone.  Our military has it with the Veteran's
Administration.  It is not self supporting, it is funded by taxes.  We pay for it.  Personally I think we do it out of guilt for what we have asked our servicemen and women to do in our name.  And, if you can make it to 65 in one piece we have Medicare and once there, probably the best system of Health Care in the World.
That is Socialism.
     Libraries are socialist.  We can't even imagine a time when if you wanted to read a book you had to buy it, but it used to be that way, before, as a society, we valued reading.  Our system of medical care has very little to do with capitalism and free enterprise. I think, however this idea should be included for discussion!
You can't just build a hospital or set up an MRI in a corner store and go into business for yourself.  We have laws to prevent that.  We have a lot of laws to prevent free competition in the medical business.  Pharmacies are heavily subsidized.  Most of the research money is generated from taxes, the government, us. We pay for it.
     I am not saying any of this is good or bad.  I am only saying it should be discussed, put on the table without emotional labels, no one wearing any political hats, and see what the ideas are, see if we can come to a kind of agreement.  Besides a particular vocabulary, what makes this very difficult is it is all expensive.
Nothing is free.  I don't need any kind of National Health at all, in any form.  I had (past tense, thank you!)
Cancer and it cost $130,000 to cure me and all but $1,000 was covered by insurance.  I have a "Cadillac"
policy, which means, basically, someone else paid for it.
    Some of these issues should be really easy to discuss.  Would National Health be less expensive? That is just math and someone should be able to explain this to us.  Why are we paying, as an average, $7,000 per year for medical costs and other countries pay half of this and live longer? and there are a lot of other real questions and concerns we have that, maybe, without emotional catch phrases we could get to the bottom.
In California some insurance companies raised their premiums by 50% just last month!  Businesses can't afford this; we can't afford this.  How much worse does it have to get before we are willing to make changes?
     One other issue makes this complicated.  Do we vote for ourselves or do we vote for our children?
I wouldn't mind a true Capitalist System.  Pay for it or die.  I would live.  I have been a businessman all my life and I have and pay for good insurance.  What happens more often than you would like to think is a guy has a good job with good insurance and he gets cancer.  Halfway through his treatment he is too sick to work and loses his job...And his insurance.  Happens all the time.  Maybe this is an opportunity to discuss  what kind of society do we want to live in?  Could we dare to not just think about our personal selves?
     I refuse to believe that this is not a discussable issue. There is an Art to discussion, we just have to find it.
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