I don’t claim to be able to foretell the future but there are a number if developments that are stacking up against a large percentage of the people in this country. That I can see.
It was recently in the news that people with 401K retirement plans noticed that the plans were not increasing in value as they should. It was discovered that the plans were being charged many fees for this and that. Or: A little fee here, a little fee there, here a fee, there a fee, everywhere a little fee.
There are many people in their fifties and older who are discovering that they can’t find work and that those younger are being hired instead. Being that they are unemployed, some are having to lean on their retirement plans to survive. With the mentioned fees, they are being hit from both ends. Don’t the fees appear to be bald embezzlement?
The news also has mentioned the wide range of prices charged for such as a joint replacement running from $40,000 to $70,000 depending on the providers. Isn’t it over-gouging? If as a result of a surgical procedure an infection develops it can drive up the cost ten-fold. It pays to be dirty. Medicare and insurance providers hold down the amount they pay. If someone is uninsured, the medical providers then boost the price with a vengeance. Many are forced into bankruptcy and will never see the end of it. There is no mercy.
The mandatory requirement that everyone must have health insurance beginning in 2014 cannot otherwise than have these results: The cost of insurance will be more than the gross earnings of many and an impossibility for the unemployed. What can help is for everyone to think well of themselves. I had always considered being a veggie in principle. I finally became one years ago. I was beginning to develop problems that I knew would become chronic. I am happy in that over a few years that those symptoms have disappeared as though they never existed.
The medicals, pharmacies and insurers make no money from me. Not to brag. For all I know my destiny is that I could take my last breath tonight but it is to be seen. I do however have preventative tests done such as ultrasound artery and bone density checks by Lifeline Screening that comes around every year. It is inexpensive and I pay for it myself. As for bone density, I intuitively sense that something in a bad diet leaches the minerals from the bones.
It is possible I might lose all of my retirement from being forced to have health insurance and end up on the street. I have my defense: I don’t need it. If I die, I die. I am old already. Everyone should care for themselves and put much of the medical, pharmaceutical and insurers out of business. But then the unemployment rate would go higher.
A program last evening on PBS claims that the USA has the highest birth mortality rate of any developed country. Something is wrong. The news also has it that pharmaceutical companies are paying physicians as much as $40,000 to promote a substance. It is not that they are merely advertising for them.
All in all, I am not saying that there is not much good in what is called Obama Care.
The months ahead do not look good. I have to be self reliant like we all had to be in what in many ways were truly the good old days.
Charles Samek
Mineola
