Quote:
Originally Posted by Janke
Paying for Medicare is expensive. Medicare is expected to be insolvent long before Social Security is expected to be insolvent.
The first link talks about anticipated dates of insolvency for Hospital Insurance (HI Part A) and Supplemental Medical Insurance (SMI Part B). The second link includes a paragraph about proposals to remove the 24 month wating period in some or all cases. For ESRD or MLS, there is no 24 month waiting period already, but those are pretty bad diseases.
I tried to find the original rationale for including or excluding disability, but the history lesson got too long and boring. It started with Roosevelt, got heated with Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy tried to make it work and then Johnson got Medicare passed in 1965. But cost is always a factor.
Remember basic economics. There is no free lunch.
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sorry! I had to take out your links! It wouldn't let me quote you with the links in there, I don't have enough posts yet!
Very true indeed. That there is no free lunch! I used to get so frustrated for people when I was a caseworker, I didn't know much if anything about SSD or SSI. I did know foodstamps, the medical card for pregnant women and children and the AFDC program. So many adults that were struggling working jobs that offered no insurance for minimum wage. They couldn't afford to pick it up for themselves. I hated to have to explain that to get coverage for that monthly medication they needed or to get that bad tooth pulled they would have to apply for and be declared disabled. That's the way it was then, I was hoping it might have changed a little since. I should've known better.
Our hospitals are bogged with people who just need to get to the doctor for more or less routine illnesses but can't afford to pay up front to walk into the Dr.s office. It's a shame as well that so many have scammed the system over the years to get disability. Really makes it rough for the true disabled.
I remember one client I had, he was applying for benefits and had full blown AIDS. He had been
denied disability!! Was on appeal...now that man definitely had a condition that was going to result in his death!! Also a man I knew that was born almost completely blind. In fact he was declared legally blind but because he had held a job for a month or two as a janitor, before they let him go for poor performance, was also denied disability. The last time we saw this man he was homeless...on the same token though there was a gal who was approved pretty quickly who was suffering from depression? She received medical coverage.
So sad.. I honestly don't think most people are looking for a free lunch with medical coverage. Just looking to live a half way human existence is all.
btw~~my husband is at the MRI place as I type. I'm beginning to think he should have just stayed home. I'm really afraid that by going ahead with it, no matter what it shows, the test alone will really hurt us only more. There's no WAY we can lose our house with these three kids depending on us.