11/28/2009 5:27:00 PM Letter: Social Security and Medicare are vulnerable
Editor:
A minimum of $100 is taken out of each Social Security check of a Senior who is 65 or older for Medicare. That is approximately 65 percent of the 45 million receiving benefits that pay this each month. Medicare is not free as the government is trying to make everyone believe.
There are millions of Seniors receiving Social Security and unfortunately others that have never paid into the system. All of the Seniors paid into the system the whole time they worked and it was called a Retirement fund. Those who are in the work force now pay through their employer, FICA, which is now called a tax fund. The Social Security fund was set up so there would be some sort of retirement for everyone who paid into it.
Then the government came up with the medical help that those receiving Social Security could receive when they reached 65, even though some may be eligible for social security at age 62. So now at age 65 the government will take no less than $100 per month out of the social security check for Medicare. That's about 28 million individuals paying $100 per month so that is $2,800,000,000 (two billion eight hundred million) that they are paying for their health care per month and then all those who are paying FICA from their employers are also paying in each month 6.20 percent into the fund in hopes that they will retire one day and have social security waiting for them. This is a mandatory payroll deduction. You see, we are not trusted to have our own retirement funds.
You may ask why isn't the money there, because the government started using the fund for everything except the original purpose. People who have never paid in, illegals, undocumented, Social Security disability. Excuse Me - now they want to take away more benefits from all those who paid in for their future.
Back to Medicare, the millions that come into Medicare from those on Social Security should pay for medical needed for them, if they were not taking care of all the freeloaders. This fund should be only for the reason it was set up. The government saw this fund sitting over here with all this money in it and decided to borrow (from Peter to pay Paul) as the old saying goes. Well they never stopped taking out and never paid Peter back. Now the Seniors are wondering what happened to their retirement and now here goes medical rationing on their Medicare. By the way, Medicare only pays 80 percent, so the senior is left with 20 percent out of pocket or yet the great new way, buy supplemental insurance to cover that 20 percent. Well, the Social Security check is now even smaller.
You say the Social Security recipient doesn't care about the cost of medical and medicines as they don't pay it or see the bill? You're wrong. They do care. Why doesn't the government have the doctors and hospitals send the bills to the individual so that person can see what they were charged for. After it is verified that they did receive all the treatments stated and the meds, then they will send it to the Government to pay. That way all the extra charges like $5 for an aspirin will be deleted if that person did not have that. This would make the medical field a little more honest with Medicare charges.
Society needs to educate everyone about Living Wills and other things available so these so called Death Squads cannot run your life.
This is not meant to scare anyone, but we have to wake up and know what is going on with Social Security and Medicare. It is not an endless amount of money to use for any whim of the government.
