3/29/2008

One (1) example of why Medicare and the SSA is going down the tubes!

When I retired from active military service after 20 years and came back to the Island to live, I bought a very small, about 200-250 customer LPG business from my cousin who wanted to quit. So for about $10K we began. One of the benefits of serving for 20 years in the military was the ability to get free medical care for me and my family for life. Kids only until they were 18. Being located where we were, made it very inconvenient to run to Newport every time you got a cut or one of the kids got sick, so we decided to invest in some sort of medical care that would take care of us very locally. So we joined the RI Blue Cross program and paid to it, for 33 years, some pretty damned huge fees to get this convenience to us. Over the last 33 years, the total has finally tripped over $1.12M. Why so high? because we chose to go with the very best program they had, that we could afford, in order to cover all possible illness's.

So there we were cruising along and only had to use the coverage a few times. One hysterectomy, not mine, a couple of heart stent implants, and numerous minor accidents, broken bones, sniffles etc.

Then one day not so long ago, I managed to reach the ripe old age of 65 and another check arrived from the government, telling me that I was to receive this money for having paid into the system since 1956 the money called, Social Security taxes! Wonderful says I to myself, "found money"! I thought it was long gone! But I thought at the time that I really didn't need it, at least not yet, as we had put away some money, had a good sized 401K and my military pay that would continue until I croaked. Plus I was doing that socially accepted practice of doing "consulting" for my former business and was receiving a small monthly stipend for that service. Oh yeah, I had to fill lots of 20 pound LPG gas grill bottles also on a daily basis, but I do digress.

In the middle of the page with the notification of the largess I was to receive from our rich Uncle Sam, was a sentence that said I was to have $98 a month deducted from my check in order to pay the fees for Medicare! I was to be AUTOMATICALLY enrolled, I wasn't asked, I was told I was enrolled, thanks to the foresight and promises of past politicians who thought that every person in the US regardless of wealth or lack thereof should be accommodated at the slop trough of public money! Screw the thought of where the money was to come from in the future to pay for their largess, just promise the folks back home unlimited access to the national treasury and let the chips fall where they may. Anything to enable themselves to stay there at the trough with their snouts shoved in so deeply they could hardly breath! Oops! digressing again!

Now this $98 a month was going to replace that approximately $2600 a month that had been the private cost to us before hand. See where this is going? So now I have my "Uncle" vying with RI BC/BS to see just who will "NOT HAVE TO PAY" for any medical bills I might incur! That's what happened! BC/BS knew damned well when I had crossed that 65 yr. threshold and still they greedily collected that annual fee from us, for FIVE years, knowing full well that they weren't going to be the primary payer as I had also joined in at the national slop though! So finally after 33 years they ejected us from the best program and put us in some other one that picks up only PART of any fees that medicare won't pay! And as yet they have felt no need to refund any portion of those fees collected from us for the past 5 years. No wonder half the "Wheels" up there are under indictment for one thing or another!

So I came across this news clip of the Administrator of the GAO, Government Accounting Office, (who is the fiscal watchdog for the "Entitlement give away boys club" e'er, that would be Congress in case you didn't know,) who has given up trying to talk to those boys about rectifying their ways, and is going directly to the public in the form of business owners, large and small, and just generally, US. He has been telling it like it really is, and what it "is", is that if they don't do some fixing starting right now, the economic future of this country as a viable entity is in absolute jeopardy of ceasing to exist!! Right now, my grandchildren have one for sure thing to look forward to for the next 75 years, and that is, that they are going to have to pay for all the entitlements handed out so zealously by the previous, present, and future STUPID, and GREEDY politicians we continue to elect. Mr. B Hussein Obama, and Shrillary will do NOTHING but continue to contribute to this slide into fiscal death! I do NOT exclude Mr. McCain from this group either. The only person I see who is trying to get handle on things locally is Our Governor Mr. Carceri (sp)!

It is Saturday morning about 5 am when I started this rant. I think I'll put a full bottle of Baileys in my coffee and start the day off right! TIFN!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

After reading your rant I would say you had some pretty dumb advisers along the way. If you had FULL medical coverage for yourself and family
but opted to spend $1.2 that you really did not need to spend...for convenience?...that was pretty stupid on your part. But, thank you for your service to our country!

Everett said...

That FULL coverage didn't cover getting on the boat or plane with their associated costs, or reimbursment for time lost from work ,or hiring someone to cover for me while gone off island. It didn't cover the cost of lodging for one or two days to make the trip to either New London or Newport, nor the cost of feeding however many of us had to make the trip. Yup, I just had an emergency that could be attended too by the local people, but under your scenario, nope can't do that! Instead wait a few hours or days to get off Island and to one of the other places. Who's the dumb stupid ass in this instance?
Do you ever stop to think things through, before you unload your invective on people you see every day? Or does it just make you feel superior to sit back under your cloak of anonymouse-ness and call people names. And please, don't give me any of your left handed, backstabbing,untrue and un-meant from you,kudos for having served for those years. If I had really thought that the US was populated solely by truly ungrateful, malicious, malignant, unthinking, curlish, mentally and socially crippled people like you, I'd have run screaming for the Canadian border so that I could hang out with people like Slick Willie! At least you know where he was 'Coming' from!! Bye now, and try your hardest to have a wonderful and fulfilling day of being terminally FUBAR!

Sam said...

There's a similar problem with the vets here in the Rio Grand Valley, where the local vet hospital was 200 to 250 miles away in San Antonio. Poor boogers would finally go into the local office sick as heck, being too proud until it got real bad, and got referred up to San Antonio ... poor fella would ask "do I look like I can drive all the way up there?"

Many just checked into the local hospital via ambulance and ran up massive bills because of something called "coverage."

The GAO, senators, and all kinds of muckety-mucks got involved and now there's a bigger clinic ... but GOA continues to find all kinds of atrocities on the same par with Walter Reed Hospital. As Everett mentions, the amount of money wasted on bad treatment, bad insurance, and bad drugs is truly astounding. The US has a very good system as compared to other countries but is more expensive, consuming a greater part of the GDP (the economy) than ANY other in the world. Plus, we're going broke doing it!

My daughter got sick during Christmas two years ago, up in Austin 300 miles away, so we gave her the advice to go to the emergency room at the local hospital. WRONG! The insurance card didn't work. She waited 8 hours sitting in a chair with a fever over 100. The doctor saw her for exactly 15 minutes and said "you're sick." That'll cost you 800 dollars. Didn't even give her a shot or a pill for walking pneumonia.

If we can't afford the mess we have today, I don't see how any "universal" health care would work in the least, simply because we can't afford those high and mighty ideals. It's all political, like feel-good things to get elected or stay elected. For example, President Bush reformed some Medicare or Medicaid which helped out the seniors, but then put the tab on the deficit.

Heck of a way to run a railroad.
-sam

Old NFO said...

Sigh... You're right Ev, and it's not getting any better anytime soon... dammit...

Anonymous said...

Successes thanking I do.