The country is doomed. its completely socialist. a personal tale

[goatlady]

Klayton, I was responding to Spock not your posts.

[Klayton]

ACK, thats two days in a row I misunderstood the intended reply was to whom. I am sorry goatlady.

Hope you are having a GREAT weekend. FYI, great weekend to be planting your potatoes. :)

[barib0]

Here! Here! Goatlady,
We seniors have WORKED FOR OUR BENEFITS they were not free or handouts. The main reason that S/S will be history is the robbing Bast%$^&& politicians. that fund was not to be touched period!.
Bari

[Spock]

I've never had health insurance but I've always been amazed how inexpensive some things are. Our dentist charges just $65. for a filling. Heck I've done them and I'd charge more- and I know he does a better job LOL.

Asked him about the metal fillings deal - the "it will leech into your brain and make you a zombie" type stuff. He said that was the $65. ones but the ones without were $20. more. But "most people don't want to pay the $20. more" For not having something even potentially bad for you in your body? Yeah right, here's my extra $20. no prob Doc!

In college EVERY doc save one hadji apu "dot not feather" type I went to, discounted my "I'm paying cash" bill once they heard I was in college. One doc I had to see a couple times did some labs and a whole bunch of misc. stuff, then the gal said "$75." I figured it should have been AT LEAST 3 bills. I said to the doc- "I appreciate you hooking me up but come on, you did a lot of stuff for this.." He refused to take any more. I told him "you exemplify the word doctor, thank you very much."

what it is is YOU are paying the doc. he doesn't have to pay employees to fight with insurance companies for his money. a few years ago when i joined the ranks of the uninsured, i went to my doctor for something. it was $65 and the drugs were free at publix. previously with insurance i had a 20 dollar co pay. i asked what would have been the total charge if i had insurance. answer $95. 75 billed to insurance the rest to the patient.

but as a self pay at the end of the exam session whatever they swipe my debit card and done. thats it. no wrangling with a 3rd party.

[protus]

cash out of my pocket- 35$
what doc bills my insc. - 150$

riddle me that :p

needless to say i get a ton of w-tf over when i hear what ins. is charged vs what the person actually pays out of hand.

the main problem is the ins. companies and doctors who will over charge to make a profit on that end of things.

IMHO if they are a real doctor they will work with you, on and off the books, to make sure y ou get the treatment you need.

But then again....what is an oath to some once $$$ gets tossed into the mix....

[Bull]

Social Security isn't an entitlement or government subsidy program. It is a total scam. It is a fraud. It is in no way, shape, form, or stretch of the imagination, the government's responsibility to provide me with either retirement money, or medical care. You would have to work really hard to get as pathetic of a return on your investment, if you managed your own retirement, as you will get with social security. It's a joke. They force us to pay, and if we reach retirement, whenever they decide that is, our return is very little. Not to mention that if we were able to invest our own money, in our own preferred way, we would have some type of nest egg, along with the monthly dividends. That's not the case with social security.

What most refer to as health insurance plans are really health maintenance plans. Is there anyone out there who thinks they will never get injured, and require a doctor? Anyone think they won't ever get sick, and need some antibiotics? These are things we know we will have to deal with at some point. Your car insurance doesn't cover the cost of replacing your tires. You know that you will eventually need to do that. It's pretty much the same thing. Mandates, and a bunch of other crap, make it so that the plans are all screwed up, and people can't really purchase a customized plan, covering only things they want covered. For colds, and the occasional few stitches, I would be fine having that money socked away, right next to the new tires for the car money. But I want insurance in case I fall off my house, while fixing the roof, and I end up needing shoulder surgery or something. Or, what actually just happened, where I tore my ACL, and need knee surgery. It sure would be nice to have coverage if I came down with cancer, or ended up with any other major illness. But it's hard to get a plan that covers only that type of thing. They have the high deductible plans, which I've used. Got a bad pinched nerve in my neck, from a squashed disk, and spent about $1500 bucks to get my right arm to stop going numb, and finally be able to sleep. That kinda sucked. But it is what it is. My insurance was hardly anything for every other month during the year, and I didn't need any other treatment, so it still worked out better.

So my points are this: People who are paying, and have been paying, into social security, are getting screwed. We would be much better off managing our own retirement, with that same money the government confiscates, IMO. And, because of so many different things, which add up to the situation we have now, people don't have the choices they should, concerning healthcare. Why should I be covered for pregnancy, when I have undergone a procedure to ensure that I will never be able to get pregnant? If I was a woman, that is. We all should be able to pick and choose what we want to be covered for. The unexpected problems that come up, which we would like to insure against. And be free to cover the rest out of pocket. "Hey Doc, I haven't been feeling real good lately. What's the charge to take a look, tell me I have the Flu, and write a script?" Probably not very much. My dad was just having problems last week, where he couldn't hardly breath, and got winded easily, felt like crap everywhere, and had no strength. I was really scared, wondering what it might be. He had no insurance. We went to the local Doc, paid under a hundred $ cash, and got an exam, complete with EKG, and the three scripts he needed, in order to deal with an irregular heartbeat. He already feels much better. So there are plenty of things the doc can do, for less than it costs to maintain your vehicle. But, insurance would have been my dad's saving grace, had we found he had cancer or something. But he don't have any, because it's too expensive, cause that policy has to cover him for everything from a sex change, to an ingrown hair. What people need is health INSURANCE. What we get is a bunch of poor options for health maintenance plans.

[goatlady]

I absolutely agree, Bull, it is a scam, but most of us have had no choice as to whether to participate or not. That's the point that torques me off royally even today. I work very part time and they STILL deduct SS from my small paycheck each month!

[Bull]

That's too bad, goatlady. Cool name by the way. When I look at the amount of money wasted on so many things, I realize how messed up it is for social security recipients, and those soon to be. I never really counted on getting anything, because I'm only 33 right now, and have been working, on the record anyways, since 15. I can at least plan better, in the sense that I know not to count on something that won't ever be. Older folks, who are subject to so many years of political tampering, could have reasonably expected to receive some benefits. Now they are stuck with what's left. I look at it as just another 12 or whatever % it will end up being, in income tax. It leaves my pay check and goes to whatever government whim they have at that time. This, incidentally, sucks royally. But at least I don't have any illusions. It's just like the prepping we are all doing. We know better than to expect someone else to take care of us, so we do what we can to ensure our own wellbeing. It's a bad deal for sure. I think we should privatize. But we have to bridge the gap between those young enough to take a smaller hit, and start over, on their own, and those who have paid for years, and deserve benefits. Maybe some type of scaled payment plan could work. If billions were spent to establish that, rather than supporting failing companies, and other such stuff, I could go for that. You know, nobody is perfect. People, for the most part I think, can respect that. So what would be wrong with some government officials saying, "look folks, we screwed up, and this isn't working? We want to make things right, and we think this is the best way to do it. We're sorry that this is the situation, but it is what it is, and it's going to be worse if don't deal with it. We can't keep pretending the system is working. So, we're going to up the current benefits to this, and then scale the rest accordingly. Yes it will be expensive to do this, but so was a bunch of other government programs that don't even work. This will work, because we are getting the government out of the way. So it will all be better for all involved." Or whatever the speech may be. If I could begin to keep my "social security contributions" from now on, I would gladly forfeit what I've paid in so far. Sorry to ramble, but everyone my age or younger is screwed, and pretty much everyone older is too, because they aren't getting nearly the amount of money they should be getting. And judging by how frugal our government is with spending, I would have to say that it darn sure isn't because the government is watching the bottom line so much, that they just can't justify writing bigger checks to current benefitiaries. Or however you spell that. Government English class didn't serve me well either, I suppose.

[WiseOwl]

Bull, I am in the same boat with you. Just turned 30 and I KNOW I will not have a penny of SS when I retire. Hell, we wont retire. We will expire. Unless someone has the great luck or opportunities, the average person is going to work until they are dead. I hope thats not the case for myself. My wife is about to get her degree and we start our future.
I feel very bad for my kids. They are going to be screwed even more than we will in 30 years.

Things will not get better for this situation. We need a major RESET. That I do not want because all the stuff we talk about on this site will come to fruition. So, I will chug along until cord pulled.

[Bull]

To expand on that previous post: I am not big on the humanitarian talk. Don't care much for any talk about doing what's best for the "common good," or for "society." I don't think all people should chip in, so that everyone is OK. At least, not against their will. If someone wants to watch a child starve to death, rather than giving that child any of their food, that's their business. Not talking about parents here. But generally speaking, I don't think anyone should be compelled to help anyone else, unless by their own moral governing. Can't say I would let the kid die, but I'm speaking hypothetically here, and only for myself. My morals and values are my business, and I can't expect someone else to have the same. I just like it more when they do. That's how people work. Crackheads are friends with other crackheads, pastors are friends with pastors, and on and on. I'm sure there are better people than me, as well as worse. But I think that people should interact through mutual, voluntary means, and zero coercion or force. So I typically support no government welfare programs of any type. Now, we have established that social security isn't welfare, because the recipients made contributions. However, I recognize that those benefits aren't nearly what they should be. I think we need to privatize it, and get the government out of the way. But, I can support an option, whereby the government would end up out of the picture, and further help rectify previous wrongdoings, by paying increased benefits than they are paying now. That money has to come from somewhere, which will probably be my children, their children, and their grandchildren. But, it would be a way to right a wrong, and address a situation where those receiving social security benefits, are still in financial distress. It would also provide the hope and freedom of having control over one's own retirement, without the confiscation of one's income, as exists today. And frankly, it would be a lot less than a bunch of other horrendous wastes of money perpetrated by our government up to this point. This situation sucks. We need to change it. If we spent a bunch of money to do it, which made the situation a whole lot better for everyone, immediately, then I could support that, depending on the specifics. On principle, this is a contradiction of sorts for me. If it was possible to track, and control to this degree, I could go for anyone being able to opt out of the additional cost of increased benefits while the system phases out. I think most people could agree, this seems like a "fair," or at least a decent way to fix this problem, without leaving a large number of people still getting shafted by small payments, while the rest can privatize. I'll stop. I think I'm rambling on like a goof ball. Sorry.

[goatlady]

Again, absolutely agree Bull and WiseOwl. I would support an "op-out" of the contribution system as it is now. Forty years ago when I was in my 30's all my generation were bamboozled by the system and we didn't know any better. Now, when we realize what has taken place, there is not a dern thing we can do but try our best with what we do have to work with and keep on trucking down that road of life.