The end of Medicare and Social Security, how do you feel about it?

a reply to: SlapMonkey

"Balanced billing" is what happens when health care is a commodity, something for profit to be plundered.

As a July, 2013 Becker’s Hospital Review article shows, some hospitals make billions in profit. Yet they continue to charge huge fees for even the smallest of goods and services. We’ve all heard the stories of that $1,000 toothbrush on the hospital’s itemized list, and sadly, it’s not urban legend. It’s real. And with medical costs spiraling out of control, patients are understandably leery, yet left with nowhere to turn.

On the other hand, the issue is not cut and dried. Some hospitals barely break even or operate at a loss. And while hospitals and doctors bill their patients at ever-rising rates, that practice may be done in part to offset the care they must provide to those who can’t pay at all. It’s a vicious circle. But that viciousness should never be the problem of the insured patient. Insurance is defined in its simplest terms as “protection”. But when balanced billing is permitted, protection fails. Balanced billing will never be the answer to the problem.

source

Everybody is so concerned about how to pay for healthcare. We have the most expensive healthcare industry in the world.

Maybe the absurdly high cost of health care is what we really need to be investigating. It's a ruse. Bogus. Equipment used in hospitals is a joke. I saw an itemized bill after someone's surgery. A simple, routine surgery.

Six scalpels were used. They were priced at hundreds of dollars each. A morphine injection was $350.00. And that's just what I remember from the many pages long itemized bill.

We need to stop them.

It really pisses hospitals off when they are asked for an itemized bill, but they must provide it.
We need to all begin requesting one anytime we are hospitalized so we can demonstrate how we are being ripped off.

a reply to: angeldoll

You're referencing Ethyl Andrus, who found the retired school teacher in 1947.

She didn't go on to create Social Security, although she did help unite local Retired Teacher Associations and created the National Retired Teachers' Association, which acted more like a union and lobbyist.

She then went on to found AARP in 1958 after already having started one of the first retirement communities in the nation in 1954. AARP did then go on to help modify Social Security at the federal level, but Ethyl Andrus in no way, shape, or form, was the cause of or inspiration for the creation of the Social Security Act.

Here's a brief timeline of facts:

- Social Security Act signed into law in 1935
- Ethyl Andrus found retired teacher in coop in 1947 (social security had existed for over a decade already)
- Andrus founded NRTA in 1947 (same year as finding teacher)
- Andrus established AARP (formerly known as the NRTA) in 1958 (social security had existed for 23 years already)

So, let's dispense with the falsehoods and hyperbole and we can just talk logically, if you'd like, or you can just keep lambasting those of us who, currently, would rather save for our own retirement in a way that will make us more money in the end. That's not being "so mighty and brilliant," that's just intelligent fiscal behavior.

Whether or not unforeseeable events in our future happen is irrelevant to that fact.

a reply to: desert

I didn't say that it was the answer to the problem, I just said that it's part of the problem that leads to the irony in your other comment.

I'm glad that you did not deny the irony, at least.

And you'll have to excuse me if I don't immediately embrace the opinion in a 2.5-year-old op-ed piece written by the author of "1001 Wedding Ideas: The Ultimate Resource for Creating a Wedding No One Will Ever Forget."

Look, I'm not denying that balanced-billing can be (and is/has been) abused by healthcare providers, but pretending that just either forcing the hospitals to write-off the costs or forcing health insurance to pay all of the bill (regardless of what is noted when you choose your insurance every year) will raise the costs even higher, and for people like me and my family who do not need medical care very often at all, save for a couple prescription refills here and there and annual check ups, either scenario of forcing one or the other to pay will fall on the collective, raising my rates when I'm not using the service very often.

And with the PPACA in effect, I can't just opt out of insurance altogether (or just go with a catastrophic plan) and build up a health savings account to pay cash, so I'm stuck subsidizing other people's healthcare costs by force.

So, while some authors of wedding books may see balanced billing as a major problem in the healthcare industry, I see it as a means to collect that which is due. If it is being abused, that needs to be taken care of, obviously, but the practice, in theory, is the cost of doing business and the cost of being an individual who may, on occasion, find one's self in a hospital where either a few thousands dollars may come out of your pocket, or you may have to forego a surgery and live a slightly more miserable existence.

We can't always have our cake and eat it too, and this is a prime example--everyone advocates hospitals eating the cost of doing business until those hospitals are forced out of business. Then where will they go for their emergencies?

I'm a big advocate of personal responsibility, and much of the article from which you quoted seems to give the individual who is ignorant to their insurance policies a pass because, as the author states:

When receiving care at a hospital, patients should not have to ask: “Is that covered by my insurance?”

Yes, they should have to ask that, because insurance is a safety net, not a pay-all service. It is there to help cover some (and sometimes all, but not often) of your healthcare needs. To pretend that getting billed for what isn't covered is "the ugly beast of medical insurance" (as noted in the author's title) is absolutely absurd. It's a necessity, and while it can be abused, in the same breath, it also can't be ignored as being a part of a healthcare provider's business.

Nobody has a right to anyone else's product or service without paying for it, plain and simple. One person's emergency should not be someone else's fiscal loss just because you may harbor the opinion that it's not right to charge someone thousands of dollars for emergency surgery that can give them full use of their hand back. Hell, I'd sell nearly everything I had in order to pay that bill.

originally posted by: banjobrain

originally posted by: cynicalheathen
*shrugs* I'm 33, it'll never be there for me anyway. I wasn't planning on it being there, and make my own plans for me and mine.

It's a Ponzi scheme that needs to go away. Unfortunately, the Feds can't afford to write checks to refund everyone's money, since again, it's a Ponzi.

It's hardly a ponzi scheme. When Bush came to office it had a surplus, all they would have to do is make sure the damn politicians can't get to it.

My grandparent and parents worked high paying jobs and saved but that money and insurance was a real life saver.

I sure hope it's there, I am certainly not gonna amass several million dollars for a self funded retirement.

Spare me the but bush garbage... both parties have raided it multiple times over the years...

All congress had to do was make it hands off money, they refused because they knew they could rob it for their pet projects.

Democrats had a much stronger grip on the fed 8 years ago and pissed it away on a lobbyist written bill... they fixed nothing.

Both parties are FUBAR, and do not care about you or me... stop the partisan idiocy and start forcing them to work for the people or get replaced.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

my sister sold off her business and opted instead to care for her elderly mother in law who was suffering from alzheimer's for years. my brother did the same for our aunt, when her own sons it seems just couldn't care less. neither of these are even close to being rich, they wouldn't have been able to afford to just build a house for the extra room, nor would they have been able to afford their medical care and gee, at least in my sister's case, I imagine that the money from her social security checks helped in providing some of her needs. In my brother's case, I'm not even sure if they had access to that social security money, since it sounds like her dear sweet I don't give a darn kids somehow ended up with alot of it.

so ya, there's alot of people out there taking in their elderly parents and relatives but many wouldn't be able to afford this if those parents were completely destitute. and, I'll tell you a secret about parents... many would starve to death before they would take much from their kids. I happen to have two of my kids living with me now, but, even when I didn't have any income, I was selling things and being responsible for at least one third of the expenses. I wouldn't be able to live knowing that those kids were doing without, not building their own future because of me.

practically anyone who had to take care of the estate of a relative, parent, grandparent of someone who were adults during the depression would probably tell you they developed some really odd practices when it came to their savings after those markets and banks went bust. the had woken up one day and found the banks didn't have their money, their stocks weren't worth the paper they were printed on, their gold was confiscated, and they ended up in the soup lines for their daily meals. they never trusted the banks again. instead, they would just hid their money throughout the house, in weird places...

a reply to: dawnstar

Yeah, I know what you mean about deadbeat children. My mother-in-law technically isn't my mother-in-law anymore--she and my father-in-law have been divorced for a decade now, and she's my wife's step-mom. Legally, she and my wife aren't even related, but since she raised my wife since she was about 7 years old, we can't in good conscience just sever ties with her (nor would my wife want to).

That said, her ass of a son who lives 4 hours away has ceased visiting or really contacting her other than meaningless comments on Facebook and the occasional birthday phone call. When we lived in the same city and she was actually living with him (and he was using her for what little money that she had coming in), my wife still had to do everything for her and take her to all of her doctor appointments, even though it was a 40-min trip to pick her up and then drop her back off. And he doesn't even work--he collects his VA disability and social security, and the dude is barely past 40. He simply refused to work. He's an avid online gamer, though!

So we are the ones stepping up to care for her, even though we legally have no say right now as to what were to happen to her if she were to be admitted to a hospital for extended care or, god forbid, went into a coma or was on life support. And keep in mind, she changed her will years ago to exclude my wife from anything, simply because my wife was tired of the BS happening (always defending her son, always criticizing my wife) and hasn't changed it since.

Also, we couldn't afford to do what we're doing either, if it weren't for the fact that my father-in-law still gives her half of his military retirement each month, even though he doesn't have to. She has offered to put that amount toward our new mortgage so that we can keep on the path of getting out of debt. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to take her in due to already having downsized our home and lifestyle to try and get out of debt--there just wouldn't be room physically.

So, I get what you're saying, and everyone's ability to care for family differs (I passively noted that in my comment), but all I'm getting at is that I wish society would revert back to family taking care of itself more and more because that's what family is supposed to do instead of only doing so out of ulterior motives or relying on government to do it for them.

originally posted by: angeldoll
It really pisses hospitals off when they are asked for an itemized bill, but they must provide it.
We need to all begin requesting one anytime we are hospitalized so we can demonstrate how we are being ripped off.

I agree with most of that statement--but you can't always assume that the cost is in effort to rip you off.

I wish that we could request a justification statement along with the itemized bill--that would be very interesting for most people to read.

originally posted by: Ameilia
a reply to: banjobrain

Republicans aren't "taking away" these programs. These programs are falling apart because in their current form, they are non-sustainable.

Bingo!^

a reply to: SlapMonkey

well, to be honest, I think before they touch the social security program as far as the elderly, they should do a few other things..
one would be to discontinue the disability payments for the minors. outside of the higher medical costs that some of these minors might incur, I can really see why their care would be more costly than that of other kids. and we could find another, needs based, avenue to take care of those higher bills and special schooling if it is needed.

another would be to find a way to prevent those fathers from managing to get out of their child support. before any child is being supported by the gov't both mom and dad should be doing all they can to provide for it. dad should be held responsible for half of that kid's support, mom should be held responsible for the other half, and both should be held responsible for half of the child care so that both are free to work.

and I kind of find it ironic that while they are working so hard to deflate wages so that we are competitive with places like china and india, they also want to shove the responsibility of the elderly parents onto the kids. social security would be a tad bit more healthy if those who were able to work were working and earning a decent wage!

and I can't help wonder if ending the limit on just how much income is subject to social security tax, might just cause some of those wages to start increasing again. can't help but notice that most of the increase in wages seem to be centered above that limit while those under it hasn't seen much at all.. and some claim that just doing this would make social security much more healthy!!

family taking care of itself

with that one, you start with the younger generations... ya know the ones who are creating babies without marriages and whining about child support because of it. you give them the earning power to be able to take care of that wife, and babies..
you don't center your attention on the elderly, most of whom by the way lived in a different time, when marriage was much more common and single parent families much less.. and they were taking care of their own much more!

originally posted by: banjobrain

originally posted by: cynicalheathen
*shrugs* I'm 33, it'll never be there for me anyway. I wasn't planning on it being there, and make my own plans for me and mine.

It's a Ponzi scheme that needs to go away. Unfortunately, the Feds can't afford to write checks to refund everyone's money, since again, it's a Ponzi.

It's hardly a ponzi scheme. When Bush came to office it had a surplus, all they would have to do is make sure the damn politicians can't get to it.

My grandparent and parents worked high paying jobs and saved but that money and insurance was a real life saver.

I sure hope it's there, I am certainly not gonna amass several million dollars for a self funded retirement.

It's nothing to do with Bush that the "surplus" has gone. It's to do with more people than ever drawing on Social Security benefits. The Baby Boomers are the biggest generation. The Ponzi scheme that is SS in it's current form relies on young folks paying into the system and older folks drawing theirs out. Well, right now, the people drawing out are far greater than those paying in. Their (the Boomers) generation is just plain larger than those of us X and Y. This is the very definition of Ponzi.

a reply to: Ameilia

and yet, those boomers have just started retiring recently and the fund has just recently found itself paying out more than it is drawing in..
so, yes, just where all that money went is a valid question if the workers have been all paying in more than enough to meet the expenditures all this time, up to about a year ago, there should be at least some funds in it. it's like a generation of savings just vanished if we are to believe the stories told to us!

Now that the Republicans have control of the entire government, it appears as if they will attempt to privatize or eliminate Medicare and Social Security.

Neither one should have been created.

If it happened, and it never will.

That isn't a bad thing.

YOU have control over your retirement instead of waiting and beggin the STATE to get it.

You will make more than the average check of $1200 a month or $12,000 a year. That's the national poverty level people.

As to medicare. The state shouldn't be in the business of providing healthcare to begin with.

Over 60 million people taken out of the PRIVATE sector which is among the reason those costs have 'skyrocketed'.

And for the record since most people don't have a clue how those programs work.

Employee,Employer in the form of payroll taxes supposedly fund the benefits received.

THEY DON'T.

They DON'T keep up with inflation.

Hell 3-4 years there have been ZERO COLA raises, when there is. It's a snipping joke.

And NEW taxes were created like the capital gains medicare surtax to cover the spending shortfall.

And that social security check has the medicare payment taken out before anyone ever sees a dime.

One government program paying another.

And GROSS income is BEFORE they take out that medicare payment.

I think people got less than 5 bucks for this years raise.

Which was eaten up by their medicare premium.

End them both/Privatize them both.

don`t we already have enough private retirement account options available to choose from?,so why do we need another one?

S.S. is self funded it doesn`t cost the government a penny, in fact it seems to benefit the government every time they "borrow" money from the S.S. fund to spend on other schemes.

S.S. isn`t going anywhere,the rich people have always been trying to find a way to get out of having to pay into S.S. because they don`t need it when they retire,they want to be able to not pay into S.S. and put that money into their existing private retirement accounts.

If the rich and middle class are allowed to opt out of paying S.S. the whole system will crash,the politicians know this so, any changes they make to S.S. will benefit only the richest people while S.S. remains as it is for the rest of us.

a reply to: Ameilia

yep, it`s an upside down pyramid now,the politicians knew this would happen,it`s simple math,but they just kept kicking the can down the road and refused to address the issue.

a reply to: SlapMonkey

Where we go wrong with health care in this country is seeing it as a business. Selling insurance, selling tests, selling treatments, selling prescriptions, selling surgeries, selling, selling, selling to make more and more money. And the irony there is that we are not more healthy.

Before I go on, let me just say God Bless You for helping out with your relative. She will be in good hands.

6 Reasons Healthcare Is So Expensive in the U.S.

The Bottom Line Most other developed countries control costs, in part, by having the government play a stronger role in negotiating prices for healthcare. Their healthcare systems don’t require the high administrative costs that drive up pricing in the U.S. As the global overseers of their country's systems, these governments have the ability to negotiate lower drug, medical equipment and hospital costs. They can influence the mix of treatments used and patients’ ability to go to specialists or seek more expensive treatments.

So far in the U.S., there has been a lack of political support for the government taking a larger role in controlling healthcare costs. The most recent legislation, the Affordable Care Act, focused on ensuring access to healthcare, but maintained the status quo to encourage competition among insurers and healthcare providers. This means there will be multiple payers for the services and less powerful control over negotiated pricing from providers of healthcare services.

Physicians for a National Health Program

Fix It

to my knowledge.... Social Security is a program for the general public unless that person decides to not enroll in the extra taxes program, many millions of citizens/taxpayers have excluded themselves from Social Security rolls


as for Medicaid..... this is a program set up by Congress to aid the people/families who find themselves on the lower rungs of the economic ladder and suffer from the pro-medicine industry laws, crafted by pharmaceutical lobbyists for their clients to the detriment of the population who are destined to become 'patients' sometime during or else All of-their-lives
Medicare is an after-thought by congress to help the under-priveledged, under-paid majority of people to escape the Corporate Medical Cabal

so, yes, just where all that money went is a valid question

the Administration of #44, BHO... has spend a lot of that S.S. money on the 10s of thousands from Syria Refugees... they never paid a dime into SSA but collect at least the minimum SSI pension which is ? near $600 month for life and get the free Medicaid on top of that .... along with housing/food-stamps, social worker advocates who seek out ever nook & cranny of free benefits for enablers of the Jihadists-in-our-midst

a reply to: desert

Every country treats healthcare like a business--many just tend to roll the cost into the citizens' taxes and smile when those mindless people spout off about their "free healthcare." That's like AT&T telling you that you get a "free" iPhone 7 if you switch to them. Anyone knows that, in order to pay off the cost of the phone, you will have a monthly fee that is higher than it would have been otherwise, and you get locked into a two-year contract to guarantee that they will make their money back.

There are many, many reasons that healthcare costs so much in the U.S., and I'm not going to go into every single ingredient, but just suffice it to say that I have researched this relatively steadily over the past many years, and government mandates on the cost of this or that will not fix the problem. In fact, part of the reason that we pay so much for prescriptions is that other countries do cap of what they're willing to pay, even if it's below the value needed for the medicine to break even for the company that created it. In turn, the costs get pushed onto Americans to make up the difference.

That's just a small example, but it gets treated like a business because it is a business--private pharmaceutical companies do the VERY expensive R&D to create new drugs that often safe lives. If they don't make large profits off of drugs that they put out into the market, they will not be able to create any new drugs, and there will be little-to-no advances in things like a cancer cure, or cure for AIDS, or new vaccines, or any of that.

It is a business, and rightfully so, but I agree that there will always be ways to lower the costs--but I will never agree that the government is going to be the answer to that. EVERYTHING that the government does costs way more than it should.

But I do agree that we're not necessarily healthier as a nation, even though we live much longer than we used to. But I believe that has much more to do with personal lifestyle choices than anything about healthcare as an industry.

originally posted by: unPresidented
a reply to: banjobrain

Of course, those self-serving cretins are going to embark on the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle classes. I laugh at the Trump supporters who thought a billionaire had their best interests at heart.

the truth of employment by corporations, especially in so-called "low wage" countries, is that they only want to pay enough to their workers, to keep them alive to work another day.....what we have now in America as far as labor protections is being whittled away every day....and now with full republican (read, wealthy) control of our government, we'll get jobs alright, but just enough pay to live to work another day. the American dream is just that, because it only happens in your head when you are asleep.