I got a shock yesterday when I picked up one of my increasing number of prescriptions for what ails me. Hm. One of them had a co-pay of over $80. It had been $10 the month before. The pharmacy was mystified. They said it was an expensive medication, but in the generic form that I received it, even at full price, it shouldn't be that much.
They said I should call my insurance company and see if I can find out what's going on.
So I did, and at first I was told the medication should have a $10 co-pay. When I said it didn't, the person I was talking to looked at my record again and said, "Oh, I see! You're in the Doughnut Hole, and drug coverage is reduced until your out of pocket expenses reach..." whatever it was, I don't remember, many thousands at any rate.
OK. I asked how long this will last, and she was so chipper about it. "Oh, only until Jan 1, sir. Your policy will reset and go back to regular co-pays."
Whew, that's a relief.
My medical expenses have shot up quite a bit since I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in the spring. I don't see my primary care physician any more since I'm being monitored and treated by a raft of specialists. Each one requires a $50 co-pay each visit. This means at least $150 most months in doctor co-pays. Sometimes more. Then there are the growing number of prescriptions. I fell into the Doughnut Hole because some of these medications cost close to $500 a month at rack rates, and insurance pays the difference between that price and my co-pay. Adds up fast. I knew I was getting close but didn't think I'd actually fall in. Apparently, the newly prescribed drug to control my pulmonary symptoms pushed me over the edge.
Apparently I will now be charged 45% of full price for my medications, but only in December.
Whew!
My rheumatologist wants me to go to National Jewish Health in Denver for the most advanced treatments for my pulmonary issues.
Well, I have my reasons for being reluctant -- including the length of time it would take to get there, especially in winter -- but I'm game. Seems National Jewish is not. Not that they wouldn't like to see me, just that they can't without specific authorization for out-of-network treatment from my Medicare Advantage insurance company. I have no idea whether that's even possible. The only out-of-network care they pay for is in case of emergencies or need for urgent care when one is traveling outside the coverage area of the company. As long as I'm within the coverage area (most of northern New Mexico) I must use in-network facilities and physicians. There appears to be no exception for referrals by in-network physicians (such as my rheumatologist.)
So. Stalemate on that one.
At least I have oxygen at home and can tank up on it before I go out and about. Eventually, they say they will replace the big tanks with small ones I can carry with me. But for the moment the big tanks and the large concentrator are doing the job.
I'm off to the cardiologist this morning to see if there's any reason for alarm about increasingly frequent chest pains -- because RA can affect all kinds of organs not just joints.
I'm getting a sense of what my sister went through with lupus. I had no idea what that was, and she really never told me what it did her. All I knew was that she was in great pain from time to time, and when she wasn't in pain, she tended to be tired and stiff-jointed. It was often hard for her to get around and do things. But she endured, generally with a smile and laughter. She didn't let it get her down more than a little bit.
I'm not in pain to speak of, so that's good. If it weren't for the medications I'm taking, though, the pain would likely be intolerable. My main problem has been fatigue, but that's partially relieved by the oxygen. The issue that has my doctors worried is the now confirmed pulmonary fibrosis due to RA. It can't be reversed. It's mostly affected my right lung but could spread if not contained/controlled with immunosuppressants -- the corticosteroids and other medications I'm taking. That leaves me open to other risks from infections and pneumonia and such.
So, combined with the inherent nature of medical bureaucracies, I'm just in a whirl, I guess.
And the Ruling Clique is now intent on taking away -- "improving" -- Medicare and Social Security. Throwing more chaos into the lives, old age and deaths of the residents of Dumfukistan. They must really hate us.
Showing posts with label Medicare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medicare. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Friday, November 15, 2013
On the Topic of Medicare for All (aka "Single Payer")
Some of what's being spitballed around these days, thanks to the uncertainty of the Health Care Transition mess, is a revival of the notion of Medicare for All, previously known as "Single Payer" (a term only a handful of people ever really understood.)
The objections have been coming thick and fast from plenty of so-called "progressives" who are desperate to make the ACA "work." Ah, willing dupes for the insurance cartel are everywhere, aren't they?
Of course it is asserted that they're all Obots, but that doesn't make sense. I don't know that anyone online who is constantly yowling about "Obots" has ever examined their premise. This being the internet, I suppose questions of that sort aren't asked in polite company, but I don't mind saying there is a distinct whiff of racism in the claim that Obama loyalists are mindless Obots for defending this or that indefensible element of his policy prescriptions and political acumen. Obviously, it was a mistake to give black folk and wimmins the vote, right?
One has to ask "who benefits" from these indefensible policies, and they examine the defenses presented, and all of a sudden, the mindless 'bot argument pretty much falls to pieces. The defenders are, in most cases, those who stand to benefit, and they are not mindless at all; they are engaged in a propaganda campaign to ensure they continue benefiting, and for the most part they aren't black folk at all. Even if they were, it wouldn't matter. The issue is the pitch, what they're selling, and who benefits.
The so-called Obots are those who are benefiting the most from these indefensible policies, such as representatives of the hedge-fund, insurance and banking cartels above all. Mindless? Hardly. They know what they are doing, and they know that way too many so-called "progressives" are too gullible to believe. They are easy marks for con artists.
And many of them will defend the con till their last breath. It's sad.
That said, it's obvious who is benefiting from the cock up of a Health Care Transition that's under way, and it isn't We, the Rabble. It is Our Rulers, in all their glory. They are making money, hand over fist, on the cock up itself and on the really terrifying uncertainty that is being deliberately generated thanks to the cock up. Make no mistake, this was all planned months if not years in advance, and from all appearances, things are going as planned. A lot of people are panicking. Many others have been convinced to blame the victims. The Crisis is building to a crescendo. And you know what the neo-libs say about Crises: never let one go to waste, for they are all opportunities to for ever more creative destruction. Here we go again.
And in the background, some of the hippies who were advocating for single payer/Medicare for All (wonder why it took so long to adopt that slogan; if it had been adopted in the first place, a lot of the confusion about "single payer" could have been avoided. But it wasn't adopted till almost the end of the game....) are raising the issue again.
Of course, it would have been much simpler to go that route, and there has even been some chatter that it might have passed if it had ever been offered on the House and Senate floors. (There are bills, but the measures were never offered for a vote that I know of.)
This really isn't rocket science. The simplest way to do it is to gradually reduce the eligibility age to zero, and when the eligibility age reaches zero, everyone born that year and thereafter is automatically enrolled in a comprehensive health care program -- one like Medicare, but one that provides more and better coverage, rather like the supplements or Medicare Advantage do -- and everyone else is made eligible for expanded Medicare if they want it, which most would, it seems to me.
It could be a two year transition or a ten year one, it hardly matters; what matters is creating a universal health care system that eliminates the insurance cartel's hold on the system. It doesn't mean that private health insurance necessarily goes away -- though it should -- it means that the cartels can no longer control access to and the provisions of the health care system.
If the current mess continues -- and it will continue, guaranteed, as long as important people can make money from it -- the calls for Medicare for All will get louder and louder, and if the revolt against the insurance cartel that's brewing gains steam, we may actually see the insurance cartel throwing in the towel and advocating for Medicare-style universal coverage themselves.
It could get that bad.
We'll see. There are powerful forces intent on ensuring that never happens, but these days you never know. Sometimes Our Betters actually give up on something they thought was going to make them so gosh-darned rich without them doing a thing (such as ACA was intended to do.) Then, when they find it is more trouble than it is worth, they drop kick it into oblivion, and what should have been done in the first place looks like a winner.
We'll see.
The objections have been coming thick and fast from plenty of so-called "progressives" who are desperate to make the ACA "work." Ah, willing dupes for the insurance cartel are everywhere, aren't they?
Of course it is asserted that they're all Obots, but that doesn't make sense. I don't know that anyone online who is constantly yowling about "Obots" has ever examined their premise. This being the internet, I suppose questions of that sort aren't asked in polite company, but I don't mind saying there is a distinct whiff of racism in the claim that Obama loyalists are mindless Obots for defending this or that indefensible element of his policy prescriptions and political acumen. Obviously, it was a mistake to give black folk and wimmins the vote, right?
One has to ask "who benefits" from these indefensible policies, and they examine the defenses presented, and all of a sudden, the mindless 'bot argument pretty much falls to pieces. The defenders are, in most cases, those who stand to benefit, and they are not mindless at all; they are engaged in a propaganda campaign to ensure they continue benefiting, and for the most part they aren't black folk at all. Even if they were, it wouldn't matter. The issue is the pitch, what they're selling, and who benefits.
The so-called Obots are those who are benefiting the most from these indefensible policies, such as representatives of the hedge-fund, insurance and banking cartels above all. Mindless? Hardly. They know what they are doing, and they know that way too many so-called "progressives" are too gullible to believe. They are easy marks for con artists.
And many of them will defend the con till their last breath. It's sad.
That said, it's obvious who is benefiting from the cock up of a Health Care Transition that's under way, and it isn't We, the Rabble. It is Our Rulers, in all their glory. They are making money, hand over fist, on the cock up itself and on the really terrifying uncertainty that is being deliberately generated thanks to the cock up. Make no mistake, this was all planned months if not years in advance, and from all appearances, things are going as planned. A lot of people are panicking. Many others have been convinced to blame the victims. The Crisis is building to a crescendo. And you know what the neo-libs say about Crises: never let one go to waste, for they are all opportunities to for ever more creative destruction. Here we go again.
And in the background, some of the hippies who were advocating for single payer/Medicare for All (wonder why it took so long to adopt that slogan; if it had been adopted in the first place, a lot of the confusion about "single payer" could have been avoided. But it wasn't adopted till almost the end of the game....) are raising the issue again.
Of course, it would have been much simpler to go that route, and there has even been some chatter that it might have passed if it had ever been offered on the House and Senate floors. (There are bills, but the measures were never offered for a vote that I know of.)
This really isn't rocket science. The simplest way to do it is to gradually reduce the eligibility age to zero, and when the eligibility age reaches zero, everyone born that year and thereafter is automatically enrolled in a comprehensive health care program -- one like Medicare, but one that provides more and better coverage, rather like the supplements or Medicare Advantage do -- and everyone else is made eligible for expanded Medicare if they want it, which most would, it seems to me.
It could be a two year transition or a ten year one, it hardly matters; what matters is creating a universal health care system that eliminates the insurance cartel's hold on the system. It doesn't mean that private health insurance necessarily goes away -- though it should -- it means that the cartels can no longer control access to and the provisions of the health care system.
If the current mess continues -- and it will continue, guaranteed, as long as important people can make money from it -- the calls for Medicare for All will get louder and louder, and if the revolt against the insurance cartel that's brewing gains steam, we may actually see the insurance cartel throwing in the towel and advocating for Medicare-style universal coverage themselves.
It could get that bad.
We'll see. There are powerful forces intent on ensuring that never happens, but these days you never know. Sometimes Our Betters actually give up on something they thought was going to make them so gosh-darned rich without them doing a thing (such as ACA was intended to do.) Then, when they find it is more trouble than it is worth, they drop kick it into oblivion, and what should have been done in the first place looks like a winner.
We'll see.
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Circling the Drain Again
I don't pretend to know what's really going on with the various political disasters for the Obama Regime brewing in various corners of the world -- such as the health care thing and the Israel thing and the Iran thing and the TPP thing, but man, it's a super-storm these days. We'll take them one by one, mercifully in separate posts.
Health Care Transition: The launch of the Health Care Transition appears to have been deliberately sabotaged, apparently by the contractors hired to implement it, apparently for more money. But there's more going on as well, much more involving the perfidious insurance cartel directly in what looks for all the world like racketeering right out in the open, something they've been loathe to practice heretofore, though everyone knew it was going on, but now they don't seem to care at all about being found out. I wonder why. Hm. Needless to say, the Rs are taking full political advantage of the mess that's been made of things, but they have no interest in actually destroying the thing. Their political interests are to serve the insurance cartel as certainly as the Dems' interests are. As much as the Rs are accused of the sabotage, they aren't really the ones who did it, nor was it ever in their interests to do it. Their fussbudgeting of it is really minor compared to the rising chorus of complaints from the public -- who are being royally, fiercely screwded.
The only faction of the elites who actually have an interest in said sabotage are those who believe they aren't guaranteed enough money via the ACA/HCR/Obamacare. Given what's been going on, it's fairly easy to figure out who they are, too: the insurance providers, the IT contracting firms, and the various medical industry suppliers. They want more, lots and lots more -- guaranteed -- or they'll keep right on throwing stink bombs.
Health Care Transition: The launch of the Health Care Transition appears to have been deliberately sabotaged, apparently by the contractors hired to implement it, apparently for more money. But there's more going on as well, much more involving the perfidious insurance cartel directly in what looks for all the world like racketeering right out in the open, something they've been loathe to practice heretofore, though everyone knew it was going on, but now they don't seem to care at all about being found out. I wonder why. Hm. Needless to say, the Rs are taking full political advantage of the mess that's been made of things, but they have no interest in actually destroying the thing. Their political interests are to serve the insurance cartel as certainly as the Dems' interests are. As much as the Rs are accused of the sabotage, they aren't really the ones who did it, nor was it ever in their interests to do it. Their fussbudgeting of it is really minor compared to the rising chorus of complaints from the public -- who are being royally, fiercely screwded.
The only faction of the elites who actually have an interest in said sabotage are those who believe they aren't guaranteed enough money via the ACA/HCR/Obamacare. Given what's been going on, it's fairly easy to figure out who they are, too: the insurance providers, the IT contracting firms, and the various medical industry suppliers. They want more, lots and lots more -- guaranteed -- or they'll keep right on throwing stink bombs.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Medicare Advantage Sticker Shock
Wow.
I just received my Presbyterian Senior Care (Medicare Advantage) Notice of Changes for 2014.
Ee-yikes!
My co-pays are going wayyyyy up. Many have doubled, others are up 50%-70%. These are huge increases for people on limited incomes, though Presbyterian claims that the maximum out of pocket expense for patients on this plan will only go up by $400 -- which still isn't chicken feed for a lot of folks.
I assume this is happening because some of the excessive payments and reimbursements for Medicare Advantage providers are being reduced, and so the providers seek to recover from their patients. I don't know though.
We had no warning, no hint at all that co-pays were going up so steeply.
Of course even with these increases, out of pocket expenses are still a good deal less than with Medicare alone, there's no additional charge for drug coverage (though the co-pays are much higher than they were), and all in all, except for some higher rates for the first three days of hospitalization, patient co-pays are similar to or lower than the Kaiser coverage we had in California -- that cost $800 a month.
We're lucky enough to be able to pay these higher costs, but what of old folks who are just able to handle the out-of-pocket costs imposed by Presbyterian now but do not have -- and won't have -- an additional $400 for medical care? They're not poor enough for Medicaid, but don't have any additional flexibility in their budgets, either. What are they supposed to do?
(I can hear it now: "Do you really need a dog? What you pay in dog food alone, not to mention the vet and stuff, would easily pay for the higher medical co-pays. Priorities. You know?")
It's gonna be a tough year for a lot of folks come January.
I just received my Presbyterian Senior Care (Medicare Advantage) Notice of Changes for 2014.
Ee-yikes!
My co-pays are going wayyyyy up. Many have doubled, others are up 50%-70%. These are huge increases for people on limited incomes, though Presbyterian claims that the maximum out of pocket expense for patients on this plan will only go up by $400 -- which still isn't chicken feed for a lot of folks.
I assume this is happening because some of the excessive payments and reimbursements for Medicare Advantage providers are being reduced, and so the providers seek to recover from their patients. I don't know though.
We had no warning, no hint at all that co-pays were going up so steeply.
Of course even with these increases, out of pocket expenses are still a good deal less than with Medicare alone, there's no additional charge for drug coverage (though the co-pays are much higher than they were), and all in all, except for some higher rates for the first three days of hospitalization, patient co-pays are similar to or lower than the Kaiser coverage we had in California -- that cost $800 a month.
We're lucky enough to be able to pay these higher costs, but what of old folks who are just able to handle the out-of-pocket costs imposed by Presbyterian now but do not have -- and won't have -- an additional $400 for medical care? They're not poor enough for Medicaid, but don't have any additional flexibility in their budgets, either. What are they supposed to do?
(I can hear it now: "Do you really need a dog? What you pay in dog food alone, not to mention the vet and stuff, would easily pay for the higher medical co-pays. Priorities. You know?")
It's gonna be a tough year for a lot of folks come January.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
On Geezers Passing
I think I've mentioned on this blog that when I got an invitation to the 45th anniversary reunion of my high school graduating class, along with it was a link to the Dead List from that class. And when I checked it, I was shocked (really) to see the names of at least half the graduating seniors from my class listed as already dead. It was a small class, less than a hundred, and I counted fifty three names, though I knew at least two of them were still alive, so there may have been more errors.
None of the dead ones made it to age 65. I noticed that a lot of those who passed away did so suddenly in their forties or early fifties from heart attacks or lingeringly from congestive heart failure. A lot of deaths were from accidents -- either traffic fatalities or otherwise, or in one case a gun accident. Three that I knew of died of AIDS. There may have been more. Three were killed in Vietnam when they were... young. But a whole raft of guys I hung out with in high school were dead from unlisted causes. Four of their names were alphabetically sequential, and so they all knew each other from the time they'd been in elementary school, they were good friends with one another and their families were close. I was the New Kid, came into the district in 9th grade, and I got to be friends with all of them. After high school, I went to college and they didn't so we lost touch, yet it was a real blow to find out they were all dead. Good doG.
The list went on and on. Practically everyone I considered a close friend in high school was on it. That was hard to take. The handful of friends from those days who had not passed were people whose whereabouts I was pretty sure of and whose contact information I probably had in some address book in the desk in the dining room since I had last seen them no more than ten years before. I noted that some of them were on the "do you know what happened to...?" list and laughed because a couple of them were very well known about town, got their names and faces in the papers all the time, and it struck me as silly that the Reunion Committee didn't know where they were. Oh really?
Given that I knew what had become of the four or five high school chums who were still alive, and none of the rest of the people I'd want to see from my high school class had survived, I skipped that reunion. In fact, I haven't been to one since the 10th, whenever that was. The 50th will be coming up in a couple of years, and I have a hard time imagining I'd go -- or that literally anyone I'd want to see would live to show up at it!
I still have a link to the Dead List, and I checked it yesterday to find another half-dozen or so names added since last I checked, a couple of whom I knew had died, but others surprising me. There was also now a list of Dead Faculty and Staff. Yes, well. Practically all of them are no longer with us, wouldn't you know. But many seemed to have made it well into their eighties before passing. Good for them!
Then I looked up a post-high school buddy, my closest off-campus friend during early college years, someone I lost touch with for years, then briefly reconnected with about 15 years ago through his adult daughter who was part of the crew for a play I produced, but then I lost touch with him again, as our lives didn't really intersect anymore. Now that we were both in our dottage, I was curious to see if he was still working or had retired or whatever. What did I find but his obit.
Oh, Jeebus.
He died nearly three years ago, it turned out, from what was described as "a brief illness." No, he didn't make it to 65, either. I couldn't imagine what kind of "brief illness" might have killed him, as he was sturdy as an ox, but I could well imagine that if he had to be hospitalized something could have gone terribly wrong. There was a picture of him with the obit that was taken fairly recently -- I'd say within the last five years -- and I was struck with how well he'd aged, looking mature, yes, but not really old as so many of my age-group do. His death hit me hard when I saw his picture. It's still upsetting.
The passing of so many of these people I knew, all of them dying before they reached age 65, more than half of my high school graduating class for example, should have an effect on the canard that's become conventional wisdom that "people are living longer" and "life expectancy has increased" since the establishment of Social Security back in the Dark Ages.
Some people are living longer, to be sure. And some people's life expectancies have increased. But for many, it just ain't so. Some people's life expectancies have actually been in decline for years. I'd like to see a statistical analysis of the life-spans of those Boomers in my high school graduating class, because if so many are dead now -- more than half -- then the average life expectancy can't be all that much beyond 65 -- if that, depending on how young the dead ones were when they passed and how much longer the rest of us geezers are going to hang on before we, too, shuffle off this mortal coil.
While it's possible there is a distinct anomaly in the high number of pre-age-65 deaths in my particular high school class and among my friends, I'm dubious. So far as I know, there is no special risk factor among them, though I could be wrong.
We were all living in middle class (white) suburban neighborhoods; there was no perceptible crime, certainly none of violence, and no gangs or widespread drug use (there was some, though, that I can recall from before graduation but far less than the routine use of alcohol.) We were near an Air Force base, however, and lot of the households were military. A lot. The base has since been closed by the Air Force, and it took years to clean up the pollutants before it could re-open for civilian use, so I'm wondering if pollution might be an anomalous risk factor.
Vietnam took three from my class, AIDS another three, accidents perhaps ten, heart attack or heart failure another fifteen or so. I only counted two or three listed as cancer deaths, but I know several who survived bouts with cancer and -- so far as I know -- are still alive. As for the rest of the deaths most have no cause listed.
My post high school buddy didn't live near the base, but he had grown up near -- and his father had worked for -- the railroad yards, which was/is even more contaminated than the base was. Which might have been a factor. He worked in construction for 40 years, specializing in drywall installation later on, had his own company and such, and he was very busy during the construction/real estate boom. That was probably a more immediate factor in his death, but I don't know specifics, so I can't say for sure.
My own parents died relatively young, but not that young -- my father of cancer at age 69, my mother of emphysema/lung failure leading to heart failure at 74. My sister, however, died at age 61 from a blood clot following surgery to repair knee injuries she sustained in a prisoner take-down; my brother died at age 40 or 41 of unspecified causes.
So even in my own family, a relatively small sample to be sure, the average age of the dead ones is 61. (If we threw in the twins that died at birth, the number would be much lower.)
What I'm getting at is that the "longer lifespan" argument for cutting Social Security benefits and making Medicare access more difficult and expensive is simply bogus for larger and larger numbers of people. A few people -- mostly the very rich with access to more expensive and higher quality medical care -- are living longer (and longer) which may be driving up statistical averages (much as their income does), but the vast majority are not living longer and most have no chance of living longer; too many will have shorter lifespans than those of their parents. The panic over "longer lifespans" has been whipped up by the media (in the pay of certain billionaires it would appear) and it is nothing but propaganda.
Breaking through this propaganda barrage is essential on many levels. It seems to me that what passes for the "left" in this country is very late to the game, letting the propaganda go essentially unchallenged until fairly recently, too recently to be able to counter it effectively. Unfortunately, a sizable percentage of the leftish commentariat has bought the bogus "longer lifespan" argument, and while not openly supportive of cuts to Social Security and Medicare, will not substantively argue against them nor indeed will they argue the correct policies of expanding rather than restricting these and other social programs, increasing Social Security benefits, lowering retirement ages, and instituting something like Medicare For All.
What passes for the "left" in this country is among our many failed institutions since the turn of the millennium. Somehow, the People have to take control for their future and their own sakes.
None of the dead ones made it to age 65. I noticed that a lot of those who passed away did so suddenly in their forties or early fifties from heart attacks or lingeringly from congestive heart failure. A lot of deaths were from accidents -- either traffic fatalities or otherwise, or in one case a gun accident. Three that I knew of died of AIDS. There may have been more. Three were killed in Vietnam when they were... young. But a whole raft of guys I hung out with in high school were dead from unlisted causes. Four of their names were alphabetically sequential, and so they all knew each other from the time they'd been in elementary school, they were good friends with one another and their families were close. I was the New Kid, came into the district in 9th grade, and I got to be friends with all of them. After high school, I went to college and they didn't so we lost touch, yet it was a real blow to find out they were all dead. Good doG.
The list went on and on. Practically everyone I considered a close friend in high school was on it. That was hard to take. The handful of friends from those days who had not passed were people whose whereabouts I was pretty sure of and whose contact information I probably had in some address book in the desk in the dining room since I had last seen them no more than ten years before. I noted that some of them were on the "do you know what happened to...?" list and laughed because a couple of them were very well known about town, got their names and faces in the papers all the time, and it struck me as silly that the Reunion Committee didn't know where they were. Oh really?
Given that I knew what had become of the four or five high school chums who were still alive, and none of the rest of the people I'd want to see from my high school class had survived, I skipped that reunion. In fact, I haven't been to one since the 10th, whenever that was. The 50th will be coming up in a couple of years, and I have a hard time imagining I'd go -- or that literally anyone I'd want to see would live to show up at it!
I still have a link to the Dead List, and I checked it yesterday to find another half-dozen or so names added since last I checked, a couple of whom I knew had died, but others surprising me. There was also now a list of Dead Faculty and Staff. Yes, well. Practically all of them are no longer with us, wouldn't you know. But many seemed to have made it well into their eighties before passing. Good for them!
Then I looked up a post-high school buddy, my closest off-campus friend during early college years, someone I lost touch with for years, then briefly reconnected with about 15 years ago through his adult daughter who was part of the crew for a play I produced, but then I lost touch with him again, as our lives didn't really intersect anymore. Now that we were both in our dottage, I was curious to see if he was still working or had retired or whatever. What did I find but his obit.
Oh, Jeebus.
He died nearly three years ago, it turned out, from what was described as "a brief illness." No, he didn't make it to 65, either. I couldn't imagine what kind of "brief illness" might have killed him, as he was sturdy as an ox, but I could well imagine that if he had to be hospitalized something could have gone terribly wrong. There was a picture of him with the obit that was taken fairly recently -- I'd say within the last five years -- and I was struck with how well he'd aged, looking mature, yes, but not really old as so many of my age-group do. His death hit me hard when I saw his picture. It's still upsetting.
The passing of so many of these people I knew, all of them dying before they reached age 65, more than half of my high school graduating class for example, should have an effect on the canard that's become conventional wisdom that "people are living longer" and "life expectancy has increased" since the establishment of Social Security back in the Dark Ages.
Some people are living longer, to be sure. And some people's life expectancies have increased. But for many, it just ain't so. Some people's life expectancies have actually been in decline for years. I'd like to see a statistical analysis of the life-spans of those Boomers in my high school graduating class, because if so many are dead now -- more than half -- then the average life expectancy can't be all that much beyond 65 -- if that, depending on how young the dead ones were when they passed and how much longer the rest of us geezers are going to hang on before we, too, shuffle off this mortal coil.
While it's possible there is a distinct anomaly in the high number of pre-age-65 deaths in my particular high school class and among my friends, I'm dubious. So far as I know, there is no special risk factor among them, though I could be wrong.
We were all living in middle class (white) suburban neighborhoods; there was no perceptible crime, certainly none of violence, and no gangs or widespread drug use (there was some, though, that I can recall from before graduation but far less than the routine use of alcohol.) We were near an Air Force base, however, and lot of the households were military. A lot. The base has since been closed by the Air Force, and it took years to clean up the pollutants before it could re-open for civilian use, so I'm wondering if pollution might be an anomalous risk factor.
Vietnam took three from my class, AIDS another three, accidents perhaps ten, heart attack or heart failure another fifteen or so. I only counted two or three listed as cancer deaths, but I know several who survived bouts with cancer and -- so far as I know -- are still alive. As for the rest of the deaths most have no cause listed.
My post high school buddy didn't live near the base, but he had grown up near -- and his father had worked for -- the railroad yards, which was/is even more contaminated than the base was. Which might have been a factor. He worked in construction for 40 years, specializing in drywall installation later on, had his own company and such, and he was very busy during the construction/real estate boom. That was probably a more immediate factor in his death, but I don't know specifics, so I can't say for sure.
My own parents died relatively young, but not that young -- my father of cancer at age 69, my mother of emphysema/lung failure leading to heart failure at 74. My sister, however, died at age 61 from a blood clot following surgery to repair knee injuries she sustained in a prisoner take-down; my brother died at age 40 or 41 of unspecified causes.
So even in my own family, a relatively small sample to be sure, the average age of the dead ones is 61. (If we threw in the twins that died at birth, the number would be much lower.)
What I'm getting at is that the "longer lifespan" argument for cutting Social Security benefits and making Medicare access more difficult and expensive is simply bogus for larger and larger numbers of people. A few people -- mostly the very rich with access to more expensive and higher quality medical care -- are living longer (and longer) which may be driving up statistical averages (much as their income does), but the vast majority are not living longer and most have no chance of living longer; too many will have shorter lifespans than those of their parents. The panic over "longer lifespans" has been whipped up by the media (in the pay of certain billionaires it would appear) and it is nothing but propaganda.
Breaking through this propaganda barrage is essential on many levels. It seems to me that what passes for the "left" in this country is very late to the game, letting the propaganda go essentially unchallenged until fairly recently, too recently to be able to counter it effectively. Unfortunately, a sizable percentage of the leftish commentariat has bought the bogus "longer lifespan" argument, and while not openly supportive of cuts to Social Security and Medicare, will not substantively argue against them nor indeed will they argue the correct policies of expanding rather than restricting these and other social programs, increasing Social Security benefits, lowering retirement ages, and instituting something like Medicare For All.
What passes for the "left" in this country is among our many failed institutions since the turn of the millennium. Somehow, the People have to take control for their future and their own sakes.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
The Freakout Continues, cont'd....
 |
| His Serenity Back In The Day |
Now that His Serenity's Budget has been released, shrunk wrapped and all, and yes, indeed, it contains cuts to Social Security (scheduled benefit increases are to be based on the Infamous Chained-CPI instead of current COLA formulae and expected inflation rates; it's complex) and Medicare (scheduled payments to providers are slated for cuts and beneficiaries contributions are scheduled to increase), all heck has broken loose, at least among "progressives."
Who insist that there be "NO CUTS!!!"
Well. Fine. That's not going to help much, though, when All The Serious People insist that these aren't "really" cuts, at least not from current benefits, they merely slow the rate of increase "to more closely reflect the actual impact of inflation." Yeah, right. Lies and damned lies, but whatever.
The issue, as I've said before, is that maintaining the status quo -- which is all that "NO CUTS!!!" does -- is actually a step backwards because current COLA formulae don't reflect actual cost of living increases for anyone, let alone elders. Consequently the only serious progressive position should be to increase SS benefits by substantially more than current COLA formulae do.
Duh.
But of course, that's not the "progressive" position.
Not even Bernie Sanders'.
If "NO CUTS!!!" is the opposition position and only "progressives" are expressing this position, then the game is already lost no matter what the outcome.
Young Ezra may have actually written a column with charts and graphs and stuff that show -- or suggest -- that increasing benefits is better for the economy than reducing them or their rate of growth, but so what? Who is claiming that the economy will be better for these cuts? Who is claiming that the intent of these cuts is to improve the economy? Ha ha ha.
The intent is obvious: ensure that the High and the Mighty will never be required to pay one dime in taxes to support other people's old folk or to pay back any of the trillions of dollars in tax reductions they've received due to the trillions in surplus SS taxes already paid for their own and their parents' retirements.
It's been obvious for years.
Cutting scheduled Social Security benefits has been on the political agenda of the Highest of the Mighty ever since the failure to privatize the system under the Busheviks. This doesn't mean they are giving up on their ultimate goal of stealing the entire SS money pot. In fact, the payroll tax "holiday" and the White House's open advocacy for Chained CPI are almost as obviously means toward that end. Privatization of the program can then be hailed as the means to increase benefits, and I'll bet you even Bernie Sanders supports it.
Sometimes it's so easy to read these entrails.
Monday, April 8, 2013
The Freakout Continues...
This might be interesting. I don't know how to read these beads, though, so it might turn into a big, fat nothing burger, too. We'll see.
On Wednesday, the White House will present its budget, one widely presumed to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits "going forward" and to do who knows what all damage to remaining social programs -- which have already been severely impacted by state and local budget cuts since the advent of the Permanent Recession, and have not in any way kept pace with the social needs of the American People as they are forced further and further into poverty and destitution.
Many people have pointed out that even Granny Starver Paul Ryan's budget doesn't (directly) harm the old, the halt, the blind and the lame. Obama's does. Or at least it's reported to in advance of its anxiously awaited release.
"Nixon goes to China" and all that.
There's not a lot that We the People can do about these machinations of the High and the Mighty. We can do almost nothing about them through elections. The political/electoral process in this country -- a process which was never amenable to the public interest or the public good -- has reached what looks like a terminal phase. It has become fundamentally useless as a means for accomplishing public interest ends. Only special interests can be accommodated. There are plenty of signs there is no chance for recovery from this condition. Both the major political parties are beholden to the richest players at the table, both do their bidding; neither is more than marginally conscious of the People and the public interest.
When the People become restless, the state cracks down with ever greater cruelty and violence. We live in what is effectively a police state set up and operated on behalf of a relative handful of vastly wealthy individuals and institutions.
The so-called "progressive" position under the current circumstances is to preserve what can be preserved of what remains of the New Deal social programs and to advance "cultural values" issues, such as same-sex marriage and so on.
In other words, preserve the status quo on vital issues -- to the extent that's possible -- and make incremental advances on the cultural margins, apparently so that generations to come will be culturally capable of and conditioned to doing the right thing on those vital matters.
In my view, there's nothing truly progressive about these positions at all. There's nothing progressive because there is nothing new in holding on to the tattered remnants of a more and more irrelevant social program status quo, nor is there anything new in extending rights to smaller and smaller segments of previously marginalized population segments. They may be desirable on their own account, but they are not "progress." One is quite self-consciously standing still.
So we now have a media frenzy and internet freakout over the White House's proposed "reforms" -- ie: cuts -- to Social Security and Medicare and doG-knows what other abominations the new federal budget contains.
But is it a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing?
Wouldn't surprise me.
On Wednesday, the White House will present its budget, one widely presumed to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits "going forward" and to do who knows what all damage to remaining social programs -- which have already been severely impacted by state and local budget cuts since the advent of the Permanent Recession, and have not in any way kept pace with the social needs of the American People as they are forced further and further into poverty and destitution.
Many people have pointed out that even Granny Starver Paul Ryan's budget doesn't (directly) harm the old, the halt, the blind and the lame. Obama's does. Or at least it's reported to in advance of its anxiously awaited release.
"Nixon goes to China" and all that.
There's not a lot that We the People can do about these machinations of the High and the Mighty. We can do almost nothing about them through elections. The political/electoral process in this country -- a process which was never amenable to the public interest or the public good -- has reached what looks like a terminal phase. It has become fundamentally useless as a means for accomplishing public interest ends. Only special interests can be accommodated. There are plenty of signs there is no chance for recovery from this condition. Both the major political parties are beholden to the richest players at the table, both do their bidding; neither is more than marginally conscious of the People and the public interest.
When the People become restless, the state cracks down with ever greater cruelty and violence. We live in what is effectively a police state set up and operated on behalf of a relative handful of vastly wealthy individuals and institutions.
The so-called "progressive" position under the current circumstances is to preserve what can be preserved of what remains of the New Deal social programs and to advance "cultural values" issues, such as same-sex marriage and so on.
In other words, preserve the status quo on vital issues -- to the extent that's possible -- and make incremental advances on the cultural margins, apparently so that generations to come will be culturally capable of and conditioned to doing the right thing on those vital matters.
In my view, there's nothing truly progressive about these positions at all. There's nothing progressive because there is nothing new in holding on to the tattered remnants of a more and more irrelevant social program status quo, nor is there anything new in extending rights to smaller and smaller segments of previously marginalized population segments. They may be desirable on their own account, but they are not "progress." One is quite self-consciously standing still.
So we now have a media frenzy and internet freakout over the White House's proposed "reforms" -- ie: cuts -- to Social Security and Medicare and doG-knows what other abominations the new federal budget contains.
But is it a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing?
Wouldn't surprise me.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Austerity for Thee
More and more people seem to be coming to the realization that Our Betters in Washington are selling us a bill of goods regarding the viability of various social programs, specifically Social Security ("if we don't do something right now, now, now! we're all gonna die!"), that is plenty familiar -- and wrong.
Of course it will still be a while before many of those who are opposed to -- say -- pilfering Social Security revenues for -- say -- yet more tax cuts for the rich, but even they'll come around after many more years of pounding.
Social Security is not really off-budget like Our Glorious Wars, not at all. As I understand it, until the recent payroll tax "holiday," it was paying out about as much as it brought in, so it was at least revenue neutral. Prior to The Permanent Recession (which happened simultaneously with the start of Baby Boomer retirements, isn'tthatinterestingthough) Social Security was collecting a substantial surplus, all of which was secured by (I wouldn't say "invested in...") special Treasury bonds.
Since the payroll tax "holiday," however, and even now with full payroll taxes being collected in incomes once again (which amounts to a 2% tax hike on working people) Social Security has been paying out somewhat less than (or quite a bit less than, depending on your point of view) it has been receiving in revenues.
This has meant "tapping the Trust Fund" -- except it doesn't really. The people who say the Trust Fund isn't real are right in that sense. There is no special place where the Trust Fund Trillions are stored for safekeeping. Payments from the Trust Fund come out of the government's General Fund -- which means they are either taxed or borrowed into being.
Because of the incessant jiggering that's been done to the Fund and the budgets and such, it ultimately means that all the money that's being paid out to Social Security beneficiaries comes from the General Fund, though SS continues to maintain nominal independence, what with its dedicated revenue stream and so on and so forth (the law, as it were).
Social Security is no more "going broke" than the Government itself is "going broke" or the Imperial Storm Troopers are "going broke." The Federal Government has a highly creative ability to keep itself from "going broke," as well as the ability to determine who will actually go broke in the Casino of Life.
Thus all the yakking and yabbering about Social Security being unsustainable or what have you is really little more than rhetoric for the yobs and entertainment for the Higher Ups as they decide (on Our Behalf, of course) who will and will not benefit from this or that decision or action they take and implement.
In the case of Social Security, the High and the Mighty have decided they want to cut Social Security payments to beneficiaries "going forward." And they have decided they will do it, no matter what the People think about it, though they will sell it as a "strengthening" or "improvement" or what have you, "to ensure that Social Security is there for the next generations, yadda yadda," as if they actually care one way or another about you and yours. (For the record, they don't.)
They have decided in their Wisdom to re-prioritize Government spending; they don't want to spend so much on the old, the halt, the blind, and the lame as they would otherwise be spending given the priorities set a generation or so ago. They aren't seeking to reduce the amount of Government spending in the aggregate -- no, they'll increase it into the dim mists of the Future Unknown. They just don't want to spend as much on you for the well being of you and yours.
This is still somewhat abstract for Americans, because it's not altogether obvious how this re-prioritization is supposed to work. A lot of people seem not to realize that many benefit payments have been severely cut as it is, that eligibility for benefits has been restricted, and that millions and millions of people have been cut off from benefits altogether. This has come at the cost of a stunning increase in poverty, hunger and homelessness in this country -- yet it's largely invisible or goes unrecognized.
It's happening not because of any "lack of money" -- there's plenty of money. It's happening because Our Betters see their opportunity and they are taking their opportunity to ensure their perpetual happiness while incrementally enmiserating everyone else. What could be better -- for them.
If they are not actually going to reduce aggregate government spending (don't be silly, they won't) but they are insistent on reducing the amount spent for "benefits" -- or anything else that doesn't provide an immediate bottom line enhancement to them and their cronies -- what do they want to spend the money on?
Well, wars, for one thing. Another one -- could get nasty -- brewing on the Pacific horizon involving Korea. Oh, that's the ticket. Let's blow things up Over There, and let's use some Nukes, too, eh? But see, that's how Our Betters think. If you take a moment to ponder what's going on Over There, it's hard to escape the notion that L'il Kim the Bad Boy got his ideas about How To Deal with the Rest of the World not from Mao or Stalin or his Old Man but from Gee Dubya and the ilk he surrounded himself with -- whose ideas and ideals still infest the Government. (Of course, my theory has long been that the Busheviks were the very subversives we, as little ones, were incessantly warned about in the routine Anti-Communist Propaganda lectures we were exposed to. But that's another topic for another day...)
Wars can be extremely profitable for certain connected interests, as was demonstrated in breathtaking fashion in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, it was partly a matter of literally looting the people and the country of anything of value and destroying the rest, and partly it was a matter of looting the American Treasury, some of it in the form of billions of dollars (shrink-wrapped $100 bills) airlifted over on pallets, never accounted for. Endless defense spending for warriors and materiel, endless no-bid contracts, amounting to trillions more in money for nothin' -- not to pay for anything blown up or killed or conquered, not for repairs and maintenance, not for anything at all, except for the contractor's being. The closest parallel to what was happening might have been during the American Indian Wars in the 19th Century, an extraordinary period of handing out favors and payments -- often for nothing at all in concrete terms -- indeed ensuring that favored recipients would enjoy endless Government rewards for... being. All charged to War. What a racket.
The bloated National Security State has proved immensely profitable to certain connected interests -- sometimes the same ones who profit from War, sometimes others -- and they want to see those profits continue and increase until hell freezes over if they have their way. State security is a byproduct, if it occurs at all. The point, after all, is not to secure the state, it is to secure the profits of connected interests, and Americans have only the slightest glimmer of recognition that these enormous profits are actually coming at the People's expense. But that's the point.
One of the cleverest favored interests is the Medical-Industrial Complex that profits in myriad ways and seeks to ensure the perpetuation of that profit through the tender mercies of Obamacare and the forced extractions from The People that go along with it. It's not just a matter of ensuring profits for the insurance industry forever, oh no. There is more, much more, including all the many ways the Complex can profit directly from the many extractions yet to come, such as higher (and ever-higher) Medicare co-pays, premiums, and potentially the privatization of the entire program. There is no thought -- at all -- of reducing the scandalously high medical care prices in this country (another source of looting and profit). No. All the thinking among policy makers is about how to get more money out of the pockets of the old, the halt, the blind and the lame to pay for ever-growing medical costs. Clearly, the M-I Complex is one of The Most Favored Interests.
Of course the Banking Interests seem to be the most favored of all. Whereas War, the National Security State, and the Medical-Industrial interests have managed to extract trillions from the People during the last decade and a half or so, the Banking Interests managed a heist of hundreds of trillions practically overnight. Nothing like that has happened before in human history. It's a stunning achievement. Even Enron couldn't do it.
One of the little noticed factors of both the boom and the bust that has led to the current Permanent Recession (for the rest of us, not for Our Betters) was that there was an enormous amount of theft going on (much of it out in the open) and that the bulk of this theft was by the rich from the rich. That's where the money was after all, and in some ways, it was surprisingly easy for clever dicks to get.
Once that easy money was "redistributed" (among the rich) however, many of those who lost in the game wanted -- demanded -- their losses be made good from you and me. In other words, "austerity" for the rest of us, profits without end for the High and the Mighty.
The banks were the first in line, and their banditry was and is stark and stunningly successful. Not only were they made whole for their casino losses, they were apparently granted what amounts to a permanent subsidy to not only cover any future losses but to ensure an endlessly growing profit stream.
"Austerity" is perhaps the purest form of theft from the People to enhance the revenues and profits of favored interests, but in the United States, as I mentioned earlier, "austerity" is still something of an abstraction. The connections between cuts in benefits and services that have already been enacted, together with those to come, and the concomitant rise in poverty, hunger, homelessness among all sectors of the Lower Orders, along with the decimation of the middle class, aren't yet clear enough for widespread recognition.
But overseas, in Europe and Britain, those connections couldn't be clearer, as one after another, the peripheral countries and marginal population segments are quite openly looted and impoverished for the benefit of the "core" -- but more specifically for the benefit of the rising European Bankers and the Neo-Aristocracy. Parasites, in other words.
The already too meager benefits of Social Security in this country must be further reduced in order to ensure that the favored few receive the endless profits they believe they are entitled to.
But as we've seen with the banks most clearly, nothing -- at all -- need be reduced to provide the Entitled Class with endless profits. No pallets of $100 bills need be airlifted, no extractions need be taken from the pockets of workers and the elderly. All it takes is jiggering a few numbers on a screen, and Voilà: beaucoups de bucks! It's magic!
Wars and the National Security State, all the social benefits one could want, infrastructure spending out the wahzoo, all of it and more can be funded and more, with merely a jiggering of the numbers on a screen.
This tells us that the point of all the benefit cuts and austerity measures is simple: to inflict pain and suffering sadistically, because it can be done and the victims can do nothing about it.
Power.
For the sake of it.
Monstrous.
Of course it will still be a while before many of those who are opposed to -- say -- pilfering Social Security revenues for -- say -- yet more tax cuts for the rich, but even they'll come around after many more years of pounding.
Social Security is not really off-budget like Our Glorious Wars, not at all. As I understand it, until the recent payroll tax "holiday," it was paying out about as much as it brought in, so it was at least revenue neutral. Prior to The Permanent Recession (which happened simultaneously with the start of Baby Boomer retirements, isn'tthatinterestingthough) Social Security was collecting a substantial surplus, all of which was secured by (I wouldn't say "invested in...") special Treasury bonds.
Since the payroll tax "holiday," however, and even now with full payroll taxes being collected in incomes once again (which amounts to a 2% tax hike on working people) Social Security has been paying out somewhat less than (or quite a bit less than, depending on your point of view) it has been receiving in revenues.
This has meant "tapping the Trust Fund" -- except it doesn't really. The people who say the Trust Fund isn't real are right in that sense. There is no special place where the Trust Fund Trillions are stored for safekeeping. Payments from the Trust Fund come out of the government's General Fund -- which means they are either taxed or borrowed into being.
Because of the incessant jiggering that's been done to the Fund and the budgets and such, it ultimately means that all the money that's being paid out to Social Security beneficiaries comes from the General Fund, though SS continues to maintain nominal independence, what with its dedicated revenue stream and so on and so forth (the law, as it were).
Social Security is no more "going broke" than the Government itself is "going broke" or the Imperial Storm Troopers are "going broke." The Federal Government has a highly creative ability to keep itself from "going broke," as well as the ability to determine who will actually go broke in the Casino of Life.
Thus all the yakking and yabbering about Social Security being unsustainable or what have you is really little more than rhetoric for the yobs and entertainment for the Higher Ups as they decide (on Our Behalf, of course) who will and will not benefit from this or that decision or action they take and implement.
In the case of Social Security, the High and the Mighty have decided they want to cut Social Security payments to beneficiaries "going forward." And they have decided they will do it, no matter what the People think about it, though they will sell it as a "strengthening" or "improvement" or what have you, "to ensure that Social Security is there for the next generations, yadda yadda," as if they actually care one way or another about you and yours. (For the record, they don't.)
They have decided in their Wisdom to re-prioritize Government spending; they don't want to spend so much on the old, the halt, the blind, and the lame as they would otherwise be spending given the priorities set a generation or so ago. They aren't seeking to reduce the amount of Government spending in the aggregate -- no, they'll increase it into the dim mists of the Future Unknown. They just don't want to spend as much on you for the well being of you and yours.
This is still somewhat abstract for Americans, because it's not altogether obvious how this re-prioritization is supposed to work. A lot of people seem not to realize that many benefit payments have been severely cut as it is, that eligibility for benefits has been restricted, and that millions and millions of people have been cut off from benefits altogether. This has come at the cost of a stunning increase in poverty, hunger and homelessness in this country -- yet it's largely invisible or goes unrecognized.
It's happening not because of any "lack of money" -- there's plenty of money. It's happening because Our Betters see their opportunity and they are taking their opportunity to ensure their perpetual happiness while incrementally enmiserating everyone else. What could be better -- for them.
If they are not actually going to reduce aggregate government spending (don't be silly, they won't) but they are insistent on reducing the amount spent for "benefits" -- or anything else that doesn't provide an immediate bottom line enhancement to them and their cronies -- what do they want to spend the money on?
Well, wars, for one thing. Another one -- could get nasty -- brewing on the Pacific horizon involving Korea. Oh, that's the ticket. Let's blow things up Over There, and let's use some Nukes, too, eh? But see, that's how Our Betters think. If you take a moment to ponder what's going on Over There, it's hard to escape the notion that L'il Kim the Bad Boy got his ideas about How To Deal with the Rest of the World not from Mao or Stalin or his Old Man but from Gee Dubya and the ilk he surrounded himself with -- whose ideas and ideals still infest the Government. (Of course, my theory has long been that the Busheviks were the very subversives we, as little ones, were incessantly warned about in the routine Anti-Communist Propaganda lectures we were exposed to. But that's another topic for another day...)
Wars can be extremely profitable for certain connected interests, as was demonstrated in breathtaking fashion in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq, it was partly a matter of literally looting the people and the country of anything of value and destroying the rest, and partly it was a matter of looting the American Treasury, some of it in the form of billions of dollars (shrink-wrapped $100 bills) airlifted over on pallets, never accounted for. Endless defense spending for warriors and materiel, endless no-bid contracts, amounting to trillions more in money for nothin' -- not to pay for anything blown up or killed or conquered, not for repairs and maintenance, not for anything at all, except for the contractor's being. The closest parallel to what was happening might have been during the American Indian Wars in the 19th Century, an extraordinary period of handing out favors and payments -- often for nothing at all in concrete terms -- indeed ensuring that favored recipients would enjoy endless Government rewards for... being. All charged to War. What a racket.
The bloated National Security State has proved immensely profitable to certain connected interests -- sometimes the same ones who profit from War, sometimes others -- and they want to see those profits continue and increase until hell freezes over if they have their way. State security is a byproduct, if it occurs at all. The point, after all, is not to secure the state, it is to secure the profits of connected interests, and Americans have only the slightest glimmer of recognition that these enormous profits are actually coming at the People's expense. But that's the point.
One of the cleverest favored interests is the Medical-Industrial Complex that profits in myriad ways and seeks to ensure the perpetuation of that profit through the tender mercies of Obamacare and the forced extractions from The People that go along with it. It's not just a matter of ensuring profits for the insurance industry forever, oh no. There is more, much more, including all the many ways the Complex can profit directly from the many extractions yet to come, such as higher (and ever-higher) Medicare co-pays, premiums, and potentially the privatization of the entire program. There is no thought -- at all -- of reducing the scandalously high medical care prices in this country (another source of looting and profit). No. All the thinking among policy makers is about how to get more money out of the pockets of the old, the halt, the blind and the lame to pay for ever-growing medical costs. Clearly, the M-I Complex is one of The Most Favored Interests.
Of course the Banking Interests seem to be the most favored of all. Whereas War, the National Security State, and the Medical-Industrial interests have managed to extract trillions from the People during the last decade and a half or so, the Banking Interests managed a heist of hundreds of trillions practically overnight. Nothing like that has happened before in human history. It's a stunning achievement. Even Enron couldn't do it.
One of the little noticed factors of both the boom and the bust that has led to the current Permanent Recession (for the rest of us, not for Our Betters) was that there was an enormous amount of theft going on (much of it out in the open) and that the bulk of this theft was by the rich from the rich. That's where the money was after all, and in some ways, it was surprisingly easy for clever dicks to get.
Once that easy money was "redistributed" (among the rich) however, many of those who lost in the game wanted -- demanded -- their losses be made good from you and me. In other words, "austerity" for the rest of us, profits without end for the High and the Mighty.
The banks were the first in line, and their banditry was and is stark and stunningly successful. Not only were they made whole for their casino losses, they were apparently granted what amounts to a permanent subsidy to not only cover any future losses but to ensure an endlessly growing profit stream.
"Austerity" is perhaps the purest form of theft from the People to enhance the revenues and profits of favored interests, but in the United States, as I mentioned earlier, "austerity" is still something of an abstraction. The connections between cuts in benefits and services that have already been enacted, together with those to come, and the concomitant rise in poverty, hunger, homelessness among all sectors of the Lower Orders, along with the decimation of the middle class, aren't yet clear enough for widespread recognition.
But overseas, in Europe and Britain, those connections couldn't be clearer, as one after another, the peripheral countries and marginal population segments are quite openly looted and impoverished for the benefit of the "core" -- but more specifically for the benefit of the rising European Bankers and the Neo-Aristocracy. Parasites, in other words.
The already too meager benefits of Social Security in this country must be further reduced in order to ensure that the favored few receive the endless profits they believe they are entitled to.
But as we've seen with the banks most clearly, nothing -- at all -- need be reduced to provide the Entitled Class with endless profits. No pallets of $100 bills need be airlifted, no extractions need be taken from the pockets of workers and the elderly. All it takes is jiggering a few numbers on a screen, and Voilà: beaucoups de bucks! It's magic!
Wars and the National Security State, all the social benefits one could want, infrastructure spending out the wahzoo, all of it and more can be funded and more, with merely a jiggering of the numbers on a screen.
This tells us that the point of all the benefit cuts and austerity measures is simple: to inflict pain and suffering sadistically, because it can be done and the victims can do nothing about it.
Power.
For the sake of it.
Monstrous.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Note on a Friend
A friend here in New Mexico has been enduring a health crisis for months now. She's been in the hospital with a blood clot that was discovered last Friday during pre-op for a hip replacement. Needless to say, her hip replacement is on hold.
She's on Medicare and has been through the usual series of frustrations, delays, incompetence and lack of communications that have long characterized American health care, and at this point, she's just beat. She's been barely able to walk since Thanksgiving when she was hospitalized the first time with these issues. Complicating the situation with her disintegrated hip joint is sciatica in her other leg, making it almost impossible for her to sit for more than a few minutes, let alone to lie down. She wasn't treated for that until she absolutely demanded that something be done. She's been in pain and misery almost constantly.
She was looking forward to hip replacement as she at least would be able to walk again, but because of the blood clot in her leg, they couldn't do it. She'll need to be on blood thinners for at least a couple of months, then off of them for at least a month before they can do any surgery, and it may well be longer -- much longer. She said that at least in the hospital she could sleep better than she could at home.
It's a sad and aggravating situation -- for our friend most of all, but for her family and friends as well. She's not alone, thank goodness, as she has family in town and friends throughout the area, but she's lived alone and has been independent for most of her adult life, and being dependent on others as she has to be now is driving her nuts. That and the pain and the frustration and being unable to walk more than a few steps at a time.
We're helping out as we can. It isn't all that much, but it's something. We've been through this kind of thing our own selves and taking care of another, so it's not all that unfamiliar. You go into a kind of auto-response of "Oh, this is what you do, this is how you get through it, etc." It's surprising how easy it is to slip back into that routine. Or maybe it's hard-wired.
At any rate, it's taking a good deal of our time, so posting may be light for a while.
Another cliff looms...
She's on Medicare and has been through the usual series of frustrations, delays, incompetence and lack of communications that have long characterized American health care, and at this point, she's just beat. She's been barely able to walk since Thanksgiving when she was hospitalized the first time with these issues. Complicating the situation with her disintegrated hip joint is sciatica in her other leg, making it almost impossible for her to sit for more than a few minutes, let alone to lie down. She wasn't treated for that until she absolutely demanded that something be done. She's been in pain and misery almost constantly.
She was looking forward to hip replacement as she at least would be able to walk again, but because of the blood clot in her leg, they couldn't do it. She'll need to be on blood thinners for at least a couple of months, then off of them for at least a month before they can do any surgery, and it may well be longer -- much longer. She said that at least in the hospital she could sleep better than she could at home.
It's a sad and aggravating situation -- for our friend most of all, but for her family and friends as well. She's not alone, thank goodness, as she has family in town and friends throughout the area, but she's lived alone and has been independent for most of her adult life, and being dependent on others as she has to be now is driving her nuts. That and the pain and the frustration and being unable to walk more than a few steps at a time.
We're helping out as we can. It isn't all that much, but it's something. We've been through this kind of thing our own selves and taking care of another, so it's not all that unfamiliar. You go into a kind of auto-response of "Oh, this is what you do, this is how you get through it, etc." It's surprising how easy it is to slip back into that routine. Or maybe it's hard-wired.
At any rate, it's taking a good deal of our time, so posting may be light for a while.
Another cliff looms...
Friday, December 7, 2012
On Cutting the Social Safety Nets
As we know, Our Rulers set an objective to cut the social safety nets some time ago, and they have been relentless in pursuit of their goals. Such safety nets as were put in place during the FDR/WWII/Cold War Eras have been cut back since the advent of the Reagan Revolution, and many are coming down.
The idea is marketed as Liberationist -- see, Freedom! To starve! Yay! -- but of course the upshot is authoritarian. These things always work out that way for some reason. And here you thought you were Free.
And it is literally Freedom to Starve, let's make no mistake about it. Poverty in America has been growing at a smart clip and there is no sign at all that the trends will reverse. The likelier scenario is that poverty will keep growing and -- gosh! -- no one will have a clue what to do about it; gee, it's just one of those things, you know... As poverty grows, so does hunger -- abject hunger, starvation -- something that has been stalking the land for many years, but you don't really notice or hear about it because most of those who are starving have long been so marginalized (primarily among the homeless mentally ill) that their fate -- whether to starve or to freeze or whatever, get run over or to be shot by the police for being odd -- isn't even noted by most people. That's how far we have come from the days when we actually thought we were on the way to a comprehensively caring society. The closer we got to it in the '60's especially, the farther from it a faction of our ruling class moved themselves and eventually the rest of us.
Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward wrote a book back in the day called "Regulating the Poor," and it was remarkably influential among a certain element of the Liberal Elites in the 1970's and '80's. Eventually, it would give rise to the enabling faction of those same elites. Which is to say that the shredding of the social safety net has been largely accomplished under the liberal -- and liberationist -- guise, rather than as an ongoing aspect of increasingly radical and reactionary rule of the neo-liberal/neo-conservative nexus at the core of post-modern governmental theory and practice.
I doubt that Piven and Cloward had any idea that their examination of Poor Laws over the centuries, and their application of Liberationist notions to the expansion of the Welfare State in America during the '60's and '70's would actually provide the justification for and lead to its destruction, but there you are. After all Piven and Cloward are liberals, and they wrote to celebrate the more humane and liberating features of the social safety net then being implemented... didn't they?
At this point, I honestly don't know. Witnessing the shocking growth of poverty in this country over the last five years and more and the neglect of even basic provisions for those least able to care for themselves as a consequence of public policy decision made by representatives of all political stripes -- every one of whom seems to be under the thrall of a tiny minority of extremely wealthy and inordinately selfish and socially irresponsible individuals and corporate interests -- it's difficult to tell.
Americans have ceded responsibility for social well-being to this handful of moral cretins, and so we have the results we see -- results which ought to be appalling to anyone with a conscience. Poverty, hunger, homelessness, disease, and death. That's the result. It's all around us.
And so a concerted effort is under way to further reduce or eliminate such minor provisions for the well-being of the American People as have survived to date. This means that Social Security and Medicare are on the chopping block, and the Democratic denizens of the White House and Senate are eager to do the chopping -- much as the Democratic denizens of an earlier White House cheerfully ended "welfare as we know it."
At one time, of course, the United States got without much of a social safety net at all, certainly there was nothing to speak of provided from the Federal Government on behalf of the poor and destitute -- which in those days constituted a shockingly high percentage of the American population. People fret that the United States is becoming a Third World country, little realizing that it was one back in the day. Until relatively recently, Americans were by and large poor, and there was little or no succor for the impoverished masses.
What there was, however, was a kind of escape hatch: the Frontier.
Escape to the Frontier was the means Americans chose to deal with the crushing poverty of the masses, especially the poor urban masses.
But the Frontier closed toward the end of the 19th Century. There was no longer any place to escape to. Free land on which you might be able to make a living was no longer available, and many of those who had gone out earlier to the Frontier were facing ever increasing exploitation and hardship, not the prosperity and freedom they were promised.
I've written a bit about how members of my own family escaped poverty by heading west, and how -- at least for a time -- some of them waxed prosperous. Yet prosperity by itself is an evanescent thing for most Americans. As the middle class shrinks and the supposed wealth of middle class Americans evaporates, "prosperity" for many is now something of a cruel joke.
What is the answer from Our Rulers and the social scientists who serve them? Why shrink the middle further of course! Relieve them of all wealth. Increase poverty. And cut back or destroy whatever is left of the shredded safety net. Freedom demands no less!
Our Rulers agree this must be done. They disagree on how fast and how harshly it must be done.
The People of course object, but their objections are not heard nor are they considered. "Painful choices" must be made, and they will be made, with or without the concurrence and agreement of the People.
"Entitlements" are to be "trimmed." The People be damned, and bless the increasing poverty that will result.
For the poverty of the many is believed to be necessary for the ever-expansion of the wealth of the few.
As we know, with the collapse of Communism, there are no longer any intellectual or moral barriers to the impoverishment of your Granny or your children's early deaths from preventable diseases. These are instead considered tonics to the moocher and dependent classes, goads to get them off their lazy asses and into some productive toil.
That the employment market has collapsed along with the bubbles that had been inflated over and over again is beside the point. Oh, there is plenty of work to be done, to be sure. Simply rebuilding a portion of our corroded and collapsing infrastructure would lead to full employment in a trice, but it wouldn't necessarily benefit Our Betters sufficiently to be worthwhile -- to them-- so it isn't done. Doing something globally about global warming and climate change could easily employ the entire population of the Earth and then some, but if Our Betters can't see sufficient profit for themselves in the endeavor, it won't be done. And "sufficient" unto themselves is Everything, much as the entire profit from the productivity increase over the last 40 years has gone into the pockets of the Overclass.
Social Security must be "trimmed" -- not because of any deficit in the program or in government finances, but because it benefits the Unworthy. That is the sole reason to cut Social Security benefits. Much as Medicare benefits those who Don't Deserve It, and so Medicare eligibility must be restricted (by raising the age of eligibility, much as Social Security eligibility has been restricted via raising the age of eligibility to collect full benefits. As an aside, commentators may want to get up to date on that age: it is not 65 for current retirees. It is 66 and some months. Soon enough it will be 67. It hasn't been 65 for years.)
Medicaid of course solely benefits the Unworthy and should therefore be slated for elimination.
All because of Moochers.
It's long past time to jettison this paradigm.
Overwhelming majorities of the American People oppose further cuts in Social Security and Medicare. Yet Our Rulers are poised to cut them anyway -- and perhaps they are even more inclined to do so because of public opposition. Governing contrary to the will of the People has become institutionalized in American government, and the more public opposition there is to neo-liberal programs (such as cuts to the social safety nets) the more the Ruling Class feels emboldened to pursue and enact policies contrary to the public interest and the public will. (Cf: Greece for a grotesque example.)
Apparently the only way to stop this is to... put a stop to it. So far, the People haven't figured out how to do that.
But the People will. They always do...
Friday, July 15, 2011
Well...
It isn't over till it's over, but clearly the Fat Lady is tuning up.
The Debt Limit/Deficit issue is near some kind of Grand Bargain resolution, no matter the posturing of the players to suggest otherwise.
And the Simpson-Bowles report will be the framework for the resolution.
A New Commission will be formed to detail the alterations to the Entitlements that Simpson-Bowles left to be filled in later, but we can be sure that most of the rest of their report will be adopted pretty much as is.
This will mean, for example, that the tax base will be "broadened," by limiting deductions and tax "expenditures" (can anybody say "EITC?") and making "everyone" eligible to pay income taxes instead of just the 47% who do so now. Simultaneously, tax rates on the rich will go down, significantly. The poor, who never had to pay income taxes -- and were never meant to -- will now be "eligible" to put their skin in the game, lucky duckies, so as to make up for the tax losses at the top. Genius.
Entitlements (odd that that word has come to have a pejorative connotation among so many these days; it was never a curse word before) will be "adjusted" so as to reflect the "New Normal Times" we're living in. Back when the Soviet Union collapsed, pensioners took it in the shorts, and many of the survivors are still in dire straits. What we're being prepared for here doesn't look like it will be quite that bad, but it won't be good.
Social Security increases will be slowed, and the retirement age will be raised, but probably not substantially or quickly. It took thirty years to get it from 65 to 67, and it quite possibly will take 30 years to get it up to 70. Semi-Privatizing the program for younger workers is still a possibility, but probably not as much of one as was once the case; the Government needs SS funds for current operations, wars, and benefits for the rich, and at this point, it is hard to see a way for the Government to sacrifice any revenue source, but you never know.
It will become more and more difficult for oldsters to get by on their meager pensions, though. This will cause some distress -- but not nearly enough to do anything about it.
Medicare/Medicaid is going to be where the really nasty entitlement cuts are made, we can be almost certain of it.
Of course Medicaid has already been cut to the bone in state after bankrupt state. From a recipient's point of view, further cuts are almost inconceivable. But they're coming just the same. If you think Granny is being warehoused now, you ain't seen nothing yet. As for access to health care for the poor: Ha. In your dreams.
What will be happening with Medicaid recipients will be a preview of what is going to happen with just about everyone under the ACA, including Medicare recipients.
The signs are that the Ryan Plan will -- with some adjustments -- be implemented for seniors. It will be essentially the same as the ACA for everyone else. Apart from the confusion of the transition, there won't necessarily be any startling changes immediately, but ultimately, it will mean that everyone is paying more for less and less access to health care. That's the key to saving money in Medicaid -- make it difficult or impossible to access the health care system -- and that's what's going to happen with the rest of the health care industry. It will still be there; it may not necessarily even cost you any more than you already pay. You just won't have such "easy" access to care. Genius!
All this and much more is part of the neo-liberal Grand Bargain Obama is intent on. Whether or not he has a second term in the White House could not matter less to him, so all the fancy threats never to vote for him -- or any Democrat -- again!!!!® are pretty meaningless. So? Something about nose and spite comes to mind.
This is what it looks like from here.
Still developing, of course.
And from a political -- not a policy -- standpoint, Obama has played it masterfully.
Monday, July 11, 2011
The Attacks on Social Security and Medicare (and Medicaid, which is something else) are Relentless
As I've been pointing out in other fora, Social Security has already been effectively cut for most seniors through the administrative refusal to allow any COLA this year or last year, and by proposing a tiny COLA for next year that would be immediately gobbled up by higher Medicare premiums.
Social Security administrators insist that no COLA is due to recipients because "there has been no inflation," which is absurd. In fact, costs for basics and necessities -- like food, shelter, heat, transportation, non-prescription drugs and other off-Medicare health care, and so forth have been going up exponentially during this period of Endless Recession. The purchasing power of Social Security benefits have declined substantially in the last two years, as they will continue to do so long as COLAs are denied.
A trial balloon was floated by Our Rulers to see how changing the COLA inflation formula would fly. The idea was to reduce COLAs even further by assuming that as costs for one basic or necessary good or service go up, seniors will substitute cheaper goods or services (even though many are already at the rock bottom price point) and therefore they won't "need" such a generous COLA. Fucking genius! Why wasn't this plan instituted long ago?
The idea was to save a few hundred billion dollars in Social Security payouts -- so as to have the wherewithal to conduct more and ever more imperial wars of aggression while continuing to provide handsome emoluments and tax breaks to the High and the Mighty.
Supposedly, this idea has been shot down -- for now -- but we can bet (and win) that it will come back with a vengeance.
Today there comes news that His Serenity is proposing to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67. Not immediately. He'd wait till after the election next year, but still. And to think, it wasn't that long ago many of us thought, gee, eligibility for Medicare might just be lowered to 55.
I'm so old, I remember when it was taken for granted that "by the year 2000" (what a milestone that was intended to be!) the usual retirement age would be 55, if not actually 50. Now it is 66 for people of my cohort, and it is going up to 67 for those coming after -- this "reform" agreed-to in the 1983 overhaul of Social Security, along with doubling the OASDI tax rate. Obviously, that's not old enough though because people who will never have to worry about their own retirement security are now proposing to raise the retirement age to 70 for those now in the 40's. This is insane.
Meanwhile the assault on public employee pensions continues unabated as well; private sector defined benefit pensions were largely done away with long ago -- except, of course, for the top executives, many of whom leave with super-generous pensions of almost unbelievable amounts. Because ordinary workers in the private sector may not have any pension provisions at all, and they may not have enough income to set aside money for retirement, the thinking among the Ruling Class is that public sector workers -- who have bargained for and have contracts ensuring certain defined benefit pension provisions -- should be forced to sacrifice their pensions "because workers in the private sector don't get pensions..."
Well, some private sector workers do. If they're on the top of the heap, that is.
Meanwhile, savage cuts to Medicaid have been underway since the Endless Recession began, yet even now, this simply fact is widely unrecognized. Of course, most people don't use Medicaid (and most will never be eligible for it) so they don't know -- and for the most part, they don't care -- what's been happening to those on Medicaid. They don't know that eligibility is more and more restricted, that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have been pushed off the Medicaid rolls, even as poverty has skyrocketed in this country. They don't know that fee reimbursements have been repeatedly cut for providers. They don't know that the people who are still able to access Medicaid services have to pay more and more out of pocket for the services they receive. They don't know that the services provided by Medicaid have been reduced, that mental health and dental services are as rare and unavailable to Medicaid recipients as hidden diamonds. On and on and on.
These are things that most Americans have no conception of.
Meanwhile, unemployment benefits are being time restricted in state after state -- even though there are no jobs -- and unemployment benefit amounts are being reduced (even as costs for basics and necessities continue to climb.) This as more and more people wind up not only out of a job, but ineligible for any unemployment compensation at all.
This is what is going on, what has been going on for years, and this is part of what is ensuring that more and more millions of Americans are forced into poverty every year.
It's almost as if it is planned to be that way. Gee. Ya think?
Monday, May 30, 2011
Whatever Shall We Do About the Medicare Problem?
"Oh dear, oh dear, whatever shall we do?"
Sounds just like Miss Katie Scarlett in "Gone With the Wind," doesn't it? "Rhett! Rhett! Where shall I go? What shall I do?"
"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn!"
Yes. Well. The Medicare issue has dominated Beltway conversation since that nasty little scamp from Wisconsin, Paul Ryan, introduced his Bold And Courageous Republican Budget which eliminated Medicare (as we know it) and the House voted to approve it.
Well. Whatever shall we do now?
The House has voted to eliminate Medicare (as we know it.) Thus, Medicare (as we know it) must be eliminated. Eventually.
The public doesn't seem to be much gratified or amused by this change of affairs, but then, the South didn't much like their defeat either. Didn't like any of their defeats.
The public be damned. Especially the old, the halt, and the lame. They take up too much space and demand too many benefits anyway. Be done with them. To the precipice with them! They don't need Medicare, and even if they did, it costs too much. We can't afford it. Too bad if they can't pick up the short fall on their own. They should have saved for their Old Age in the first place! Not our problem if they didn't.
This harsh "reality" has become an article of faith among our Ruling Class, their sycophants, their retainers and their courtiers.
Like most articles of faith, it's based on mythologies, bullshit and lies. But countering it has proved impossible so far. The Ruling Class has adopted it as Unshakable Doctrine, and those who will be taken to the Precipice and thrown off for their failure to prepare properly for a future they could not foresee are voiceless in the matter.
Those who would oppose the Ruling Class Doctrine on this topic -- as on so many others -- start from Ruling Class premise. The premise is that it costs too damn much to provide medical care to the Old, the Halt, and the Lame, and the answer is to make them pay for their own damn medical care -- or to go without.
The "opposition" says, "Well, maybe it does cost too much, but we are a generous people, so we should maintain the status quo, don't you think, and tweak the costs downward bit by bitty bit, or at least not allow them to skyrocket out of control forever. Yes?"
Of course, the response of the Ruling Class, is, "No, you sorry excuse for a twit. If you agree that it costs too much for Government to pay for the medical expenses of the Old, Halt, and Lame -- as you just did -- the correct answer is not to 'tweak' any damn thing. The answer is plain as day: Make the Old, the Halt and the Lame pay their own damn medical costs; tough shit, losers, if they can't afford it."
The "opposition" wrings its hankie, not so much like Miss Scarlett but more like Miss Melly, and responds, "Oh, dear no!"
And around and around it goes.
What is the dénouement?
Of course, the Ruling Class gets its way and that nasty little bugger, Paul Ryan, is hailed the Hero by the Ruling Class for boldly going where no one dared go before and "telling it like it is" for the rest of us poor fools.
That's the cruel direction all this is going.
If we Demand Better, however, we can begin to move things in a different direction. It will not be easy, and it does mean actually sticking to it and not immediately yielding to the pressure and demands of the Ruling Class. Our Political Class is not used to that, so they will resist any calls Demanding Better, and they will typically ignore the People's outcry.
But shifting the parameters of the dialogue on Medicare -- and so much else in our lives -- must occur if we are ever regain our future.
First, recognize that these Cries of Doom for Medicare have been routine among the rabidly reactionary pretty much since the inauguration of the program all those long years ago. Not only is the Program Doomed, it costs too much.
Digby helpfully linked to the Health Beat Litany of Medicare Doom the other day, and it is worth reviewing:
You may have seen the headline: “DIRE FORECAST SPARKS NEW MEDICARE DEBATE TRUSTEES' REPORT USED AS FODDER FOR POLITICAL SALVOS BY BOTH SIDES,” but the date may come as a surprise: June 6, 1996.
At the time, the Chicago Tribune warned its readers: “Medicare trustees reported Wednesday that the program's financial outlook is getting worse, touching off a new round of debate over the future of the federal health insurance system for the elderly and disabled. According to the trustees, who give the program a fiscal checkup every year, the fund that pays Medicare hospital bills dipped into the red last year and will go broke in early 2001. That's a year earlier than they predicted in 1995.”
Sound familiar? How about these warnings:
Chicago Tribune July 2, 1969: “The Medicare hospital trust fund faces bankruptcy by 1976 and taxes must either be raised or benefits reduced the senate finance committee was told today.”
Washington Post, April 1, 1986: “The Medicare hospital insurance program faces bankruptcy by 1996, two years earlier than projected last year.”
New York Times, January 20, 1985: In the last few years, when it appeared that the Medicare trust fund would run out of money in 1987-89... But the need seemed less urgent after the Congressional Budget Office issued new estimates last September indicating that the Medicare trust fund would not go bankrupt until 1994.
(Hat tip to Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn who culled eighteen stories from the Tribune, the Washington Post and the New York Times over a period of four decades, each predicting that the Medicare Hospital Insurance Fund was teetering on the brink of disaster.)
But of course Medicare didn’t “run out of money” in 1994, and it won’t go belly-up now, in large part thanks to health care reform legislation. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Affordable Care Act (ACA) raises and saves over $950 billion. (Below, I spell out how the legislation generates those dollars). In the process, as the Medicare Trustees’ Report 2011 points out, the ACA reduces Medicare spending “by 25 percent”—without cutting health benefits, or shifting costs to seniors.
More changes will be needed, but Zorn is relatively optimistic. After citing the many times we have been told that Medicare is careening toward bankruptcy, he recalls the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Zorn acknowledges that “just because officials and politicians have been predicting Medicare's imminent bankruptcy for more than 40 years doesn't mean that one day they won't be right, but, more likely,” he suggests, “we will turn the knobs and twiddle the dials in order to keep the overwhelmingly popular program solvent, but not so solvent that, between five and 12 years from now, another set of politicians won't grimly inform us that it's going under in between five and 12 years.”
Exaggerating the Size of the Problem
Wait a minute: in the last week both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have warned that in 2024 the Medicare fund that pays hospital bills will be “exhausted.” I checked my dictionary—just to be sure—and it confirmed that when “exhausted” is used in a financial context, it means “to use up or consume completely; expend the whole of: He exhausted a fortune in stock-market speculation.”
We couldn’t. But the truth is that the Times, the Wall Street Journal, and most of the mainstream media have been, well, exaggerating—telling a tale that the Tribune rightly calls “A shaggy wolf story that’s getting a little long in the tooth.”
If this is so, how can we possibly fix the problem by “twiddling a few dials”?
So in other words, the Medicare Doom Scare is of a very early early date, as is the constant "costs too much" cry.
The irony is that Medicare is the most cost-efficient element of our overall healthcare picture. But then the little punks like Ryan and his devotees within the Beltway know that full well -- and that's what they hate about it.
There are not enough profits for the providers, you see. And rather than having Government -- ie: the People as a whole -- pick up the tab for profit shortfalls (as is the case with Obamacare for the non-elderly multitudes) the Ryan plan is to make the Old and the Halt and the Lame pay for it directly out of their pockets by forcing them to purchase unaffordable (and quite likely unavailable) private insurance coverage, and forcing them to pay any difference between the cost of private insurance and the "premium support" they receive in lieu of Medicare (which, BTW, is not nearly as generous to patients as it is made out to be).
Genius! Once they get that enacted, they then transform Obamacare the same way.
Everybody in the Palace is happy. Never mind if the rabble protests -- or can't pay. That, as we know, is their problem~! Suckers!
Medicare has lots of problems -- as anyone who's dealt with it knows. For patients, it's not -- at all -- comprehensive coverage for their medical needs. Medicare premiums are quite high compared to Social Security benefits from which they are deducted, given the fact that most recipients have been paying for it all their working lives through payroll deductions, and there seems to be a level of fraud in the program that would be mindboggling if it weren't for the fact that providers often feel they have to double bill or keep billing for services and equipment not received or vastly inflate their costs in order to "break even" given Medicare's legendary stinginess.
Still, it's better than nothing. And for the most part, it is far more efficient for everyone involved, and far less costly administratively, than any private health insurance.
So, punks like Ryan, just like his many predecessors listed above, set out to get rid of it. It's what they do.
What we all need and should be demanding is comprehensive health care access and coverage at an affordable cost. For everyone.
We get there by adapting Medicare to the needs of All the People.
In other words, the status quo isn't good enough. We Demand Better!
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