Obama and Democrats' Senior Citizen Problem

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In response to Sir Gareth of Minn. There are two Americas and they are the workers and savy wise investors and the freeloaders and foolish investors. If you play the stock market when you are close to retirement,then shame on you! I put my 401k money into a stable value fund when I was 5 yrs from retirement. I'm making money, didn't take a 40% hit and sleep well at night. Another misconception is the domestic auto makers and the U.A.W. are robbing the country blind! A little history lesson. When the U.S.A. gave a LOAN to Chrysler, the government was paid back with INTEREST 8 years early! Oh, another news flash, One of the conditions of the loan was the employees, salary AND the BARGAINING people take a CUT in wages and benefits! Didn't hear that on the local news! Bailout and giveaways is when people buy a foreign car with their stimulus check and the profits go to another country! General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler are building cars that are better than the foreign junk, but the yuppies ego's can't let them be seen getting into their domestic with their lattas and bagel. The U.A.W. workers have taken a reduction in pay and benefits again and the executive's pay is being watched by the government, and the LOAN the government gave will probably be paisd back early again with interest if the public buys the safe, high mileage, stylish domestics cars and not move forward at an uncontrolled rate in some foreign car. The last news flash is you could buy a Japanese car with your U.S. stimulus check but in Japan you couldn't buy a U.S. car in Japan with Japanese stimulus money! The international stimulus agreement didn't apply to the foreigners again!!

Lee Hansen of MI 1:12AM March 28, 2010

Bush got us unto a terrible mess, now Obama is trying to get us out. It is not an easy task, it will take some time to turn the Economy around. Stop and think before you make rash statments. The press is probably the worse affender.

Patricia Ernst of ME 10:02AM October 27, 2009

Their first mistake was giving all of the jobs away! The next was letting anyone come here from anywhere, including the Mexicans. They took the few jobs left because they would start out at cheaper pay. Then they yell more money.We cross borders illegally and go to jail,they cross ours and they get welfare,medicad,get to drive(even if they can't read the road signs).They get free child care,and most drive new cars,wear a lot of real gold jewelry,brand new clothes,and have new houses. I also think that the people in Washington should get paid like we do,have the same health care,and have to use Social Security. They would work to find a way for everyone to have a decent living then.I think anyone coming here from another country illegally should be jailed, until they can be sent back and then jailed there.All caught with drugs punished severly. All the ailiens have the best of everything,and the Americans have lost the American dream !!!! Obama should also have to show the whole country his birth records,with someone who has nothing to gain and can't be bought to verify it!!!!!!!!

Katie Suttle of NC 6:15PM October 01, 2009

Health problems and substantial medical debt are primary factors in personal bankruptcies in the USA, along with job loss and family problems, which are also frequently related to health. Over 40 percent of all bankruptcies in 1999 were associated with a medical condition or debt. Half of those in bankruptcy had health insurance, indicated that coverage is frequently inadequate. Nearly half of the bankruptcies among those aged 65 and over were due to a medical reason. A market economy, as promoted in the US, tends to view medical expenses as just another form of personal consumption and to disapprove of collective or government action to reduce insecurity. Although many countries encounter problems in providing high-quality, well coordinated healthcare services, the US is unique in the anxiety its citizens experience over healthcare costs. In a survey in the USA, physicians believed that unfair treatment is mostly based on whether patients have health insurance, followed by how well they speak English, their level of education, and their financial status [Kaiser Family Foundation, National Survey of Physicians, Part i: Doctors on Disparities in Medical Care, Highlights and Chartpack (Menlo Park, CA, Kaiser Family Foundation, 2002)]. Healthcare rationing in the US is mainly effect by lack of insurance coverage. As a result, we have not explicit or widely accepted way to curb expenditures, and the fragmented system hinders us from doing so. The competitive marketplace is not intended or designed to further the public good. Insurance companies reduce payments to doctors and hospitals, “carve out” benefits – like pregnancy and delivery or mental health – or add high copayments and deductibles to shift costs to patients. Pockets of self-interest compete for profit and shift burdens back and forth without achieving any improvement in quality of value of care. The Medicare Advantage (also called Medicare+Choice program (M+C) different than but closely related to the managed care option (MCO)) was an effort to both improve quality and control costs. MCOs take financial responsibility for Medicare enrollees and have an incentive to improve health and reduce expensive treatments. Unfortunately, the ideal is not working as well as intended. Under MCO costs have risen and quality has not improved. M+C enrollment peaked at about 17 percent in 1999 and declined steadily to about 10 percent of the eligible Medicare population in 2004. During the program’s first five years, MCOs have continually reduced benefits and canceled policies, creating a sense of uncertainty that threatens to reduce participation rates even further. Too often MCOs control costs simply by restricting care; this is not care management. MCOs that are more concerned with their bottom lines than with the quality of their patients’ lives have added to the mistrust many Americans feel towards managed care. (Acknowledgement: The language of Christine K. Cassel , MD has been used in this respons

Lou of IL 10:05PM September 26, 2009

When social security was enacted the monies taken from our pay was to be used for a our old age income. Back then we had a lot of workers and a lot of JOBS and the money in the social security funds was huge. Then several things happened. Laws were passed to pay for other programs out of the social security fund, the people who were paying into the fund got older and started to receive their PAID FOR social security checks and the JOBS of America were sent to other companies in other countries who had no pensions, health care costs, no environmental issues, no safety issues no child labor laws and the other countries have a lot younger work force. Then our government passed legislation to give our companies tax breaks to send work and jobs overseas. About that time we turned a blind eye to the illegal aliens and DRUGS marching over our borders and our illegal Mexican maid and pool keeper started handing us a kilo of cocaine along with our newspaper! Well the chickens have come home to roost and the lost jobs and closed businesses and older workers are gone and the tax money for social security has been squandered and is no longer there. So now we need to CUT the ENTITLEMENTS to the old people and that will fix it all!.The last and biggest insult to the working class is that the speaker of the house Nancy Pilosy wants to tax the pensions and GIVE the money to the struggling illegal aliens in this country!!! Did she O. D. on the her Mexican maid's cocaine? Only in California! And we can't understand why the senior citizen's are a problem!

Lee Hansen of MI 3:03AM September 20, 2009

Medical coverage without copays is like freeways without on-ramp controls. Just ask anyone who tries to use an urban freeway to get to work how effective free access is.
A copay is the signal that causes you to decide (or ask) whether self-care is sufficient, and whether the most expensive options for care and medicine are really worth the price.
Medicare premiums are INSURANCE. Every insurance provider who stays in business (Aetna, in my own experience) keeps risk exposure managable by teaching and incentivizing better health and the best values in health care.
Without this, the premiums we paid into Medicare over our working lives will vanish under a tsunami of aging boomer's underfunded demands on the system.

Steve Austin of TX 2:39AM September 17, 2009

Here is how I see it.
There exists two Americas and Obama appears to represent only one at the expense of the other. I worked in competivie (for profit) industry all of my life. I have seen almost 80% of my fellow wage earners laid off with the remaining taking wage cuts in order that our enterprises remain competative. I have saved heavily my entire life for my retirement and now 40% of that is gone, What is left must be gambled on the stock market or allowed to melt away as the govnerment spending and printing machines furiously rage on making the substance of our more like tissue paper every day.
My 401K is not covered by the Pension Benefit Gurantee Corporation, unlike the other half of America whose pensions I must gaurantee with the meager remainder of my vastly diminished 401k
Next the government collected $89,000 in medicare taxes and almost $250,000 in FICA taxes from me. Great, Now Obama feels that this money really belongs to SSI and Medicaid recipents who have not earned any right to collect.
Obama has bailed out billionaire bankers (who supported hsi presidency precisely for this reason), the UAW thugs who bankrupted GM and Chrysler, and all the recipients of all the worthless not-for-profit nonsense govnerment supports with either stolen cash foprm that taxpayer or its own form of counterfeit money
Wake up America, if you compete you are being had. The gold medals are being given to the couch-potatoes while the competitors are being hamstrung by a govnment that is largely run for and by criminal enterprize -
Did I put it too harshly? Just you wait and see.

Sir Gareth of MN 5:37PM September 15, 2009

Whats this right wing and left wing?, Does not the right wing have to work with the left wing to get any place or even stay airborne?. We are Americans, Trying to divide ourselves Because some make more money than the other and have different needs is just going to immobilize us all and we will go nowhere. With bush we were in a tail spin, Now we have a chance to move foreword. lets work out our difference's and move foreword before we hit the ground.
I believe in the ability to sue doctors because of there blunders not to get rich, However I had not ever sued because I have never wanted to get mixed up with some greedy lawyer. doctors nowadays do not practice, they do not even think. They have a book, computer or insurance program to tell them what to do. Its like using a calculator without knowing anything about math, how do you catch your mistakes!?. I would like to see doctors under this system disappear for the good of the people and get real Doctors that practice medicine and are not afraid to try what works. Until then I have no use for greedy low life doctors I do better not taking there drugs, And had no seizers since I stopped going to hospitals or clinics I do not get sick and do not remember the last time I had a flu shot.
Sorry if I turned negative but doctors is a bad subject for me.
Don D. Brock

Don D. Brock of AZ 5:24PM September 15, 2009

Quite frankly Senior Citizens are more than capable of researching and making their own conclusions as to the government plan for health insurance reform. We don't need the RNC or DNC to try to influence our choices. We may be the older generation but we can still think, reason, calculate and arrive at our conclusions on our own. Politics should be kept our of it. Changes and improvements are needed but not on the backs of the Senior Community.

Pat Flanagan of IL 4:24PM September 15, 2009

I have been retired for some 8 years now and was formerly on the Kaiser Medicare Senior Advantage program. I found a tiny advantage in the free admission to a local athletic club and used it a few times; however, I have the same equipment at home and thought the Advantage plan really didn't offer very much over the basic Kaiser Medicare plan. Recently Kaiser offered a lower cost ($93---->$39)for their plan. I have chosen it after doing a careful comparison of it vs the more costly Senior plan. I am happy knowing that I may pay the rare copay that is a bit more costly but otherwise I have access to any drug needed and their general plan. If their offering a lower cost plan was the result of Obama's mention that the congress would abolish the Medicare Advantage kicker, then, I think Obama is doing a good job in pursuing healthcare makerover. Our nation can well afford coverage for the 15% of the population that needs healthcare. A recent study reported by AT Kearny, a world class consultant firm showed in the potential reform areas of waste, fraud and abuse of the current governmental healthcare programs we could save a ton of money for use in defraying the cost of care for the uninsured. Dont let the rightwingnuts sway a common sense that all Americans can be proud of.

Claude M. Foutch of WA 7:05PM September 14, 2009