Archive for the ‘Medicare’ Category

Print PDF

Paul D. Ryan (R-WI)

Boy do I have a plan to fix Medicare.  Well, actually, it’s not my plan.  This guy, Paul Ryan, thought it up.  He’s some kind of chairman in Washington.

Medicare is the program that pays for health care for old people.  Also disabled people, but mostly old people.  It seems it is going broke.

That’s what this guy Paul Ryan says.  His logic is a bit hard to follow but it goes something like this.

Too many old people

There are too many old people.  The government spends too much on their health care.  The government isn’t smart enough to fix it, so it should turn the money over to those old people.

Of course, the old people can’t do it by themselves, so they have to buy insurance from insurance companies.

Since the insurance companies have lots of money and the government doesn’t this makes perfect sense.

But here is where it gets confusing.  The insurance companies have lots of money because they don’t pay for health care and the government doesn’t have money because it does pay for health care.  So won’t this situation just reverse itself in a few years?

Old people aren’t too keen on this idea.  They think the insurance companies will continue to not pay for health care.  I’m not sure I get that. If the insurance companies have all this money, why wouldn’t they spend it on health care.  What else are they going to spend it on?  Themselves?   That’s stupid.

But hey, this is where this guy Ryan shows his smarts.  I mean the guy is no dummy.  You see his plan won’t take effect until 2022.  That means it won’t effect anyone older than 55.   I think he figures they aren’t paying attention.

Time to save

And here is the beauty of his plan.  They will have 10 years to save the extra $182,000 the plan will likely cost them in retirement.  Of course, they need to be paying attention to that part; otherwise they may forget to save that much.

Extra is the key word here.  Everyone knows it is going to cost them between $330,000 and $390,000 to pay for health care in retirement under the current plan.  Presumably, these under-55 year olds have that much stashed away already.  So they will just need to save about an extra $15,000 per year until they reach 65.  How difficult can that be?

But wait!  If it looks like you aren’t going to make it, you could try going out on social security disability before 2020.  Then maybe you can get into Medicare under the old rules.

Some people just don’t get it.  It’s all about Medicare.  It’s not about people.  Some people have this silly idea that government is supposed to be here for people in need.  Remember what John Kennedy said, “Ask not what your government can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your government.”

Well our government needs us to stop asking it to do things for us.  That way it will be able to do things for people who are not in need – the rich.

This is an idea whose time has come.  Its beauty is in its simplicity.  Those who need, pay; and those who don’t, get tax cuts.

The Republicans may be backing away form this Ryan fellow, because they think people are against the idea.  But they’re just kidding.  Elect them and find out.