ENTITLEMENTS! WHO REALLY GETS THEM!?!

Politicians keep saying that they need to do something to fix the deficit. The most popular seems to be what they consider entitlements, but what are these? To them Social Security and Medicare seem to be the most popular yet these are NOT what I would consider entitlements in a way. The social security trust fund is paid into by us and is a totally seperate entity that is not part of the deficit. Medicare is a tax we pay in also, so why do they believe that they should cut something that has nothing to do with the deficit? Because government has notoriously dipped into the social security trust for decades and used it to pay other programs instead of what it was meant for. Social Security and Medicare should not be used as bargaining chips between Congress because they were the ones to put all the “IOU’S” in the trust!

To me the “entitlements” seems to be what Congress makes both while in and out of their seats. Lifetime pensions, for what? The pay they receive and the raises THEY vote themselves seem t be entitlements. The “pork” they add to any and every bill they can is what I believe is and “entitlement”. The nonproductive offices they create are what I would consider “entitlements”. There is also the amount of money that we send over to other countries to “help” them instead of our own is what I would consider a definite “entitlement”! There are many areas of government waste and that should be the first thing looked at and cuts made there.

One other area that I believe would help the middle and lower class is putting a stop to the constant and astronomically rising costs of living. Especially for our elderly with the rising costs of medical care. Too many “non profit” hospitals with too many paper pushers that are paid way too much that do nothing productive. The so called non profits do not pay taxes but make a lot of profit and extend more and more in every city. We have two main hospitals here that are exactly two blocks apart in the downtown area and one was recently bought by the largest rural hospita system in the country just a few months ago the other is a Catholic hospital. Both non profit and both have expanded 10 fold plus. The hospitals have expanded so much you almost cannot tell where one begins and one ends except for the signs. They have expanded several blocks north, south, east and west of their initial spots. They have expanded to the very north and very south of town and many othe the surrounding small towns. This is a lot of property that these non profits now own and even more money they make yet they do not pay property taxes on any of it. They do not have to pay in like the rest of us yet they continue to hike up the costs of everything. When my son was small and hospitalized a tylenol would cost around $.50 each and the last time he was in a few months ago the cost of a tylenol had gone up to $12.00 each. That is one hell of a jump in costs and that is just for a tylenol. Compare that to every single thing they use in a hospital and every test they perform and look at the raise in all of those things. This has gotten ridiculous yet they claim they cannot afford to hire the staff they need to actually care for the patients who pay their salaries. To me it is a lot like government in that they get paid well but they forget that they actually work for us. They both are out to hurt the elderly and those that are on the lower end of the pay scale to save those that make the most money, including themselves.
I believe that Congress needs to look elsewhere for the cuts they need to do and that maybe if they went ahead with fixing our infrastructure (will add jobs) and up the minimum wage (which those making it will put right back into the economy) and assess what pay should really be in government (to make it more inline with what middle americans earn) then and only then will they begin to make some sort of sense in changing our deficit. Yes we need cuts but what they consider “entitlements” seems to be way different than what an average taxpayer would consider them.

My only hope is that common sense kicks in with the 113th Congress but I really doubt it with all the infighting and the refusing to budge on anything whether it is right for this country or not! Social Security Trust should have approximately 2.6 trillion dollars in it but unfortunately it is only paper which doesn’t mean much when the IOU’s come from government. Sadly I believe that this whole situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Supreme Court Did The Right Thing!

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/supreme-court-issue-obamacare-decision-135554880.html

The AHCA individual mandate was upheld and that is perfect! Too many people have used the ER as their doctors office because they know most ER’s have to care for people whether they pay or not and it ends up costing those of us insured more and more because it is passed on to our insurance companies. I was happy with the first part of this Act because our youngest was born with congenital defects that of course meant that he could not get health care because of pre-existing conditions and he is also able to stay on our insurance until he is 26 (he will be 21 next month) and this is what was needed so badly for so many kids that have had any type of medical condition.
The thing that makes me laugh about this whole issue is that Romney is against something that is close to what he did in his own home state and that most people there are very happy with it! Now what is he going to gripe about? Also all the analysts that claimed that the mandate or the whole Act would be thrown out without a doubt just proves that most analysts do not know what they are talking about! They take a guess and that is about it!
I doubt with this win that Romney will end up in the White House in Nov. and if he would there would be no way he could repeal this Act because of course he could not just sign it away his first day and of course with several in Congress that will be up for re-election again will not want to sign it away and not have anything to replace it. Romney has not given anything concrete about what he would do to replace it anyway so without a plan it will not happen! Well it wouldn’t anyway because I do not see him becoming President!

Healthcare Reality

This article seems close to what the Health Care  Act will provide.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-will-the-affordable-care-act-affect-you-.html

There are many benefits of this and even though none of these exactly match my situation there are a couple that do. One my youngest son would have not been eligible for insurance after he came off of ours. Because of the changes he can stay on ours until he is 26, so he will be out of school and working for awhile when he needs to get insurance if his employer does not have it. Now my husbands company provides insurance and whether we have 1 or 5 children it is a family plan and costs do not change and for some reason in the last 5 years there is no difference between a couple plan cost and a family so we don’t pay anything different for having 2 of our 3 boys on our policy right now.  I am disabled and on SSD and so I am elegible for Medicare. I only have Medicare A which is the hospitalization that is automatic and no cost but instead of using any of the other (which would have cost us less) we decided to just leave me on our regular policy. Reasons to us are that we know that the hassles some people have with it and we know how ours works also if I do not need medical coverage from the government that someone else desperately does we would prefer they get it. With all the talk always going around about fewer people being able to get Medicare, I feel there are more out there that have to have it versus me who already has decent coverage.

I hear people complain that they have to purchase health care but what they do not realize is that this is something everyone should have anyway! The “I don’t get sick or go to doctors!” garbage is getting old!  I do not want my clinic and hospital bills to keep going up when these same people get sick or in an accident of some kind and go to there ER and get treated but don’t have the money to pay.  They won’t pay but the rest of us do.  Those that say, they can pay for their care without needing insurance because they only go for their yearly physical or when they really need a doctor, are in for a rude awakening if/when they end up with a catastrophic illness and they lose all their life savings and then their home because they did not have insurance. I have seen people this has happened to. I have also seen people lose these same things when insurance companies were allowed to put a cap on the benefits and we were worried that I would hit my cap within a few years and then we would not know what to do. Without a cap people do not have that stress and with the insurance companies not able to deny you for having a previous condition is better than ever!

Now the amount of the penalty that shows on this article for someone who decides not to get insurance even though it would be affordable is low. The reason I say that is that $95 is really low and the $695 they show is around what we pay per month for insurance (health, dental, vision and prescription) so that to me is reasonable. Those that decide not to are not only hurting themselves they are costing those of us who do have it.  I know plenty of people that cannot afford insurance but this will make it possible and only those that are clueless don’t believe it.

There are several countries that have universal health care in some form and it does work. Those idiotic commercials that they have people from Canada complaining about it are funny in the way that no matter what you talk about someone will always be negative!  People complain that they should be free to choose and you still are, choose you insurance or choose a penalty but do not make it where so many will go uninsured because you don’t want to be.

What makes this so frustrating is that people listen but do not really hear the advantages of a health care act and they are so focused on being a diehard party follower that they would probably walk off a cliff becaus etheir parties candidate told them too, use a little common sense!  If this is repealed and my son would no longer eligble for insurance and I would again have a lifetime cap I will fight!  I doubt it will be but it will make a mess of things if it would.  You have to see it fully working before you can judge and it isn’t yet!  If you are so insensitive to the people around you (and there are many uninsured they just don’t announce it to the world) then maybe you should go find a nice uninhabited island so you can live by your own rules and not worry about anyone else!  That would be great for everyone!

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