Category: Medicare

While we were sleeping: Social Security and Medicare at risk

12/2/2009

Blogger Ronni Bennett has put up some must-read posts outlining an initiative designed to have a huge impact on Social Security and Medicare. In fact, the initiators want to dismantle both “entitlement” programs.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any problem collecting that money. There’s nothing slimy to me about the word entitlement when it comes to Social Security and Medicare.

I clearly remember those two itemized deductions printed on my paystubs, every two weeks, over 37 years in the full-time workforce. As far as I’m concerned, I’m getting back MY own money, with interest. They just held it for me to make sure I didn't spend it too early. A wise move...

But, I digress. I urge you to read Ronni’s two reports, written with clarity and passion, at. They will make your hair stand on end:
http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2009/12/the-war-against-social-security-and-medicare.html#comments
http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2009/11/the-secret-war-on-social-security-and-medicare.html

Here’s economist Barbara Kennelly’s take on what’s really worth worrying about (hint—we’re trying to reform it):
… a CBO analysis explains that if every entitlement in the federal budget were repealed outright — eliminating Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other critical programs — but nothing were done to slow the growth in health care costs overall, we would still find ourselves spending almost 70 percent of the nation’s wealth on health care by 2082. On the other hand, if the rate of growth in overall health care is restrained so it is no longer growing faster than the rest of the economy, Medicare’s long-range financial deficit could be cut by well over one-half.

Contrary to the political crisis rhetoric, the Social Security Trustees report that Social Security will have sufficient funds to pay full benefits through 2041. Even better, the CBO projects that full benefits can be paid through 2049. No other federal program is subject to such strict, long-term spending restrictions and oversight.

The Social Security Trustees report every year on the income and outgo of the fund over a 75-year period. Over the next 75 years, Social Security has a funding gap, but that gap is both modest and manageable. Moreover, even if no changes at all were made in Social Security, and no one is recommending that, incoming revenues after 2041 would be sufficient enough to finance 78 percent of benefits.

Barbara B. Kennelly
published in Roll Call, March 11, 2009
http://www.rollcall.com/news/33061-1.html

Read more here:

Monique Morrissey, Economic Policy Institute
http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/we_need_health_care_
reform_not_an_entitlements_commission/

The Recession will NOT Bankrupt Social Security
http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/vp_economic_recession_ss/

4 Comments

Big Birthday

3/14/2009

2 Comments

Some of you have already reached this milestone, and I know others are hoping the world blows up before it happens to them, but -- if we’re lucky enough – someday we all turn 65. My big day is right around the corner.

Omigod, how could someone so young get so old?

It’s not like this date with destiny slipped up on me, exactly, but still, I’m having a hard time processing what should be just another birthday. After all, we’re only a day older on our birthday than we were the day before, right?

The undeniable proof of my impending old age is imprinted like a watermark in the Medicare card that arrived by mail recently.

There it is. Looks just like the one my parents carried around, all red, white and blue. But if you tilt the card ever so slightly into the light, you’ll notice the words “very, very old” are woven right into the paper!

When my husband turned 65 a few years, I handled his Medicare sign up and paperwork, efficient new wife that I was. It wasn’t hard to do, just time consuming. I read the stuff Medicare sent in the mail, outlined his options, picked a drug plan and Medigap provider, then sent out all the forms. Bingo! He hardly noticed the difference between his old health plan and Medicare, except now he has a lot more jingle in his pocket after every office visit and pharmacy run.

Was I jealous! My health insurance cost more than $600 dollars a month, and I was way too healthy to enjoy it! Once I married Dave, left the rat race, and started taking better care of myself, my health turned normal for my age, as they say.

How I longed for the day when I could get Medicare, too! Of course, I was blocking what cliff I had to go over to qualify.

Truth be told, I’d been sucking money out of the system for years. My 40s and 50s were medical disasters, but that's another story. The high premiums I paid in my 60s were simply part of payback time.

Six months ago, my mother’s slow decline into the netherworld of Alzheimer’s consumed large amounts of my energy and time. She lived in a nursing home 350 miles away, and it might as well have been 3,500.

Ignoring common sense and my husband’s pleas, I drove down and back on a single day to see her, every few weeks. It was such a grueling trip, I spent only two or three hours with her, so I could complete the six-hour trip down and six back up north without losing it on the highway.

And then it happened, just before Christmas. Almost silently and with as much grace as a person can muster in her condition, she slipped out of this world. Dave and I were with her and in that instant, everything in my life changed.

Since her departure, I’ve had a hard time completing tasks, even small ones. I’m told that’s normal.

Life oozes by, one day at a time.

I still haven’t written to some of her relatives and friends, but will, someday. I keep saying I must write thank you notes to some kind folks who helped us through the difficult times. What’s left of her stuff sits in piles in our extra room, remnants of a life that seemed so permanent, so important, I couldn’t imagine the earth spinning after her death.

But, it did.

And, now I see how it will continue to spin, even after mine and yours. And, that’s the way it should be.

Which takes me back to turning 65. It's just so predictable and so ordinary. Somehow, I guess I thought I would follow a different path. How and to what, I don't know.

But, maybe for the first time, I’m ready to admit to myself that most likely, I’ll finish out my life the old-fashioned way, like she did.

With little drama. Few people around me. Barely any noise or fanfare.

One day, I’ll breathe, then not breathe, and be carted off within the hour by a strong young woman who’ll clean my bed to make it nice for the next old lady.

And, that’s okay, because it’s the way things are and are supposed to be. The longer I live, the more normal are my life and my expectations.