Reason we have gov’t run programs

[LilOlLady]

REASON WE HAVE GOV’T RUN PROGRAMS
Like Society Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Society Security disability is because individuals could not manage their retirement and medical care.

Paul Ryan’s plan will not fix Medicare and those that say Medicare and Society Security need to be reformed to privatization cannot tell us how they plan to make it work. Because it cannot work better than gov’t run. Their plan to allow Individuals to invest there own money for retirement and to buy private health coverage is already a loser.

In the end, some will have retirement and some will not and some will have some will have medical care and some will not. Any plan of the Republicans will depend on government subsidies and will cost more and produce less.

Republicans talk the talk but cannot walk the walk. Put the future of individual in their hands? Been there and done that and it did not work and will not work. In the hands of individuals or in the hands of Republicans.

Our massive population of low income workers cannot buy and invest in privatizing. They live pay check to pay check and depend on government run retirement. Many become disabled and depend on government run programs.

The problem with T-Party folks is they don’t know what they have until they lose it.

Who pays your Society Security, Medicare and disability insurance when the time for pay up? Government.

If we let Republicans run the government, you had better have large supply of chickens and large fields of corn.

No such no such thing as conservative today. Remember Lil George?

All those who want you to invest in privatizing for your future, already have their future secure in government run retirement and government run medical care. Is that a clue? Do you get it by now?

Pay your damn taxes as you have always done. It’s what Jesus would do and want you to do.

Hands off the future Society Security and Medicare for my children.

 

[Alessa]

The fact is that medicare cannot be funded indefinitely. At some point, this government program will fail. The US has over $100 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. The elderly better learn to plan for their own healthcare and retirement. With the babyboomers retiring, there will be one retired person for every two people in the work force. How can this generation and the next be expected to support all of those people? And why should they support them when they have their own families to take care of?

 

[drmannie]

Our government is broke, and our medical care delivery is pathetic.
drmannie

 

[midcan5]

I think people forget government does not exist because people are perfect, it exists because people are not perfect. The growth of government coincided with the enlightenment and the beginning of a public sector as well a middle class or privileged class. In order to maintain order governments exist. Our own gov grew out of the fact the original colonies could not get along, today they would not get along. It is utopian nonsense that people left to themselves life would just be fair and just. Machiavelli and Hobbes may have been pessimistic in their views, but they were right and the times and behaviors of monarchs and noblemen of their time proved them right. Today Enron, Madoff, K Street, etc etc prove them still right.


"The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts." Quote DB :: Speeches :: George Washington :: George Washington's Farewell Address Speech

 

[Listening]

REASON WE HAVE GOV’T RUN PROGRAMS
Like Society Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Society Security disability is because individuals could not manage their retirement and medical care.

This is a general statement, that does not line up with history. The history of Social Security is rooted in the collision between the Great Depression and the Industrial Revolution. Up until the Industrial Revolution, most of the elderly were part of farms or family businesses. They generally did not retire but started to take on less and less responsibility. There was a place for them. As things changed and we became more industrialized, the glide path to old age (while staying solvent) was taken away. They were abruptly forced out (they did not fit the new age) and as a group they were severely marginalized. This actually first came to light in the depression of 1890, but was never really addressed. It seems the elderly were not comfortable taking "welfare" from the government and instead chose to often rely on family to keep them afloat.

While unemployment during the Great Depression was at 25%, it was well over 50% for the elderly.

"Following the outbreak of the Great Depression, poverty among the elderly grew dramatically. The best estimates are that in 1934 over half of the elderly in America lacked sufficient income to be self-supporting. Despite this, state welfare pensions for the elderly were practically non-existent before 1930. A spurt of pension legislation was passed in the years immediately prior to passage of the Social Security Act, so that 30 states had some form of old-age pension program by 1935. However, these programs were generally inadequate and ineffective. Only about 3% of the elderly were actually receiving benefits under these states plans, and the average benefit amount was about 65 cents a day."

That is just a little history.

So let's consider that Social Security was passed 140 years after our country was formed. It would seem that people somehow got by, for better or for worse, for a long time. There is no doubt the dynamic changed, but people have managed quite well since then when the economy was not in the tank.

Here is a little discussed fact:

Social Security was never intended to be your only means of retirement income. If you don't believe this, look at the statement that is made by the SSA on your monthly statement.

You would, therefore, expect that the SSA believes that people are going to have to manage thier retirements.

Your statement does not seem to stand up.

Note: I had 2 references but the board won't let me post them yet (not until I do 15 posts).

 

[Listening]

All those who want you to invest in privatizing for your future, already have their future secure in government run retirement and government run medical care. Is that a clue? Do you get it by now?

Pay your damn taxes as you have always done. It’s what Jesus would do and want you to do.

Hands off the future Society Security and Medicare for my children.

There are some statements that can really irritate me.

If you speak for Jesus, I'd like to know under what authority you do so. Please provide your credentials.

Beyond that.....

I recall this from some time ago and have not seen an update on this for a while.

But in 2009......

Low reimbursements have led one West Valley medical facility to stop taking certain Medicare patients, a pilot program that an Arizona health-care expert says may become a long-term trend in the industry.

For now, most Valley hospitals are still taking Medicare reimbursements.

The Mayo Clinic announced in October that its Arrowhead Family Medicine practice will stop taking Medicare payments for primary-care services. The policy goes into effect Jan. 1, affecting about 3,000 seniors. Five doctors have practices at the clinic.

"We tend to see more Medicare patients in that area," said Lyn Closway, Mayo spokeswoman. "This is a (two-year) pilot, and we will re-evaluate or reassess this after an appropriate period of time."

For Mayo Clinic, the cost of providing services to Medicare patients exceeded the total amount paid on behalf of Medicare patients by $840 million in 2008, according to the hospital.

"Government payers, without question, are the worst payers in health care," said John Rivers, president of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association. "Medicare shortfalls in hospital payments represent nearly $1 billion in Arizona alone. And those costs ultimately get shifted onto the backs of privately insured individuals in the form of a hidden health-care tax."

Rivers said Medicare payments can't be kept below cost forever without extensively damaging hospitals' ability to serve their communities. Opting out of Medicare may be the only choice for many to balance their books.

"Mayo Clinic was the first health-care system to go in this direction, and I don't think they will be the last," Rivers said. "Everyone else is facing the same pressures as Mayo Clinic, and I won't be surprised to see more of this in the future."

[I can't post the URL, but it comes from a site called AZcentral....I still need to get to 15 posts]

You can find all kinds of articles on this. Most of them will tell you that the Glendale clinic lost 120 million on medicare patients last year.

I am sure there is more to the story than what is reported.

But, if this really happened for these reasons, it would seem a prime example of the disconnect in the current dialogue. We cannot continue to have medicare if we don't raise taxes or cut benefits.

And since raising taxes seems to be a show stopper, I would suggest your claim of security under the blanket of the federal government is in question.

Where am I seeing this incorrectly ?