Free health care for illegals? What about the elderly?
Our own Poetrooper is up and about, spitting fire just like his old self. Good to see, Poe. The target of his ire is two-fold- the brutal costs of long term healthcare, and Democrat Presidential Candidates and their Free Shit Army. And so…
Poetrooper
Last week, my wife and I visited her elderly, lifelong severely handicapped brother in the nursing home. He was watching Fox News, and, during yet another on-air panel discussion of the Democrat debacle that passed for debates a few nights earlier, we listened to another discussion of the incredibly crazy call by all of the Democrat pretenders to the presidency for free health care for illegals. That reminded me of what we faced when we moved her brother here from New Mexico two years ago: the possibility of having to privately pay for his nursing home care were he not approved for Medicaid in this state. The cost we were quoted at the time was $6,000 per month, a figure far beyond our means to provide. That cost quite simply would have eventually bankrupted us, depriving this elderly couple of our own hard-earned and far from extravagant retirement, forcing us out of our home, rendering us unable to ever pay for our own nursing home care should it become necessary.Sunday, Tom Perez, hard-left Democrat apparatchik and Kool-Aid-concocting commissar of the Democratic National Committee, doubled down on the dumbness, defending these silly socialist stumpers and their insanity. His mindless defiance inspired me to do some research to confirm my suspicions that such nursing home costs, or long-term care, were having a detrimental effect on Americans in my age group. Unfortunately, what data are out there are contradictory when it comes to statistics, but what is undeniable is the trend: bankruptcies among elderly citizens are up sharply, increasing every year, and medical expenses are generally agreed to be the most frequent contributory factor.
While I was unable to find breakdowns of specific types of medical expenses leading to bankruptcy, it stands to reason that nursing home costs have to be a prime culprit simply because they are not covered by Medicare, except for brief recuperative periods following hospital stays, while private insurance for long-term care is prohibitively expensive, with limited coverage. Therefore, the only assistance an elderly couple can hope for with this enormous expense is Medicaid, and in order to qualify, they must have a relatively low income and resort to near self-impoverishment by spending down their life savings to a low, state-approved maximum. Doing this may render them incapable of paying other large medical bills, resulting in bankruptcy.
So, you Democrats who want to provide free health care to folks who have never paid in a dime for Medicare or any other American tax program, why don’t you first find ways to take care of these U.S. citizens, who, after living long, productive, responsible, tax-paying, Medicare-contributing lives, are required by the infirmities of old age to impoverish, even bankrupt, themselves or their spouses to get the residential nursing care they require? They haven’t broken any federal laws to qualify for your generosity like those illegals you’ve pledged to provide care for. If you socialist schemers value hordes of overweight, iPhone-flaunting, foreign flag–waving Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Mexicans more than you do your own citizens, don’t be surprised if those elderly citizens, voters who tend to vote in every election, don’t share your silly, ding-a-ling Democrat delirium come November 2020.
Thanks, Poe. Truly a frightening scenario, and a great place to start for “Our” representatives to actually make a change for the better.
Category: 2020 Election, Exploitation, Guest Post, Health Care debate, Illegal Immigrants, Reality Check, Veteran Health Care
What about veterans?
VA healthcare is far from free.
The means testing makes it a last resort for long term care. A service connected disability bars one from obtaining long term care on the open market.
Own a home…you go it alone.
Maybe I should take in an illegal as domestic help and live off their benefits.
They can drive me around with their free license. Make appointments for me on their free Obama phone. Hell, they can even vote for me with Maine’s new automatic voter registration for free illegal alien driver licensees.
Poetrooper: Your analysis of the mandatory spenddown to qualify for Medicaid is spot on. Another contributing factor in increasing bankruptcy among those over 60+ is student loan debt. Some older Americans took on educational debt for themselves late in life as part of a career change, often after losing a job. Or they co-signed loans for their children or grand-children who then fail to make the required monthly loan repayments and the senior becomes liable. Social Security benefits can be partially garnished to repay defaulted federal student loan debt. Credit card debt is also increasing among the elderly and many then tap the equity in their homes through a HELOC to pay the credit card debt. It’s a vicious debt spiral. For many seniors there is no gold left for their “golden years.”
Well, that settles it. I’m not going to go like my mother did, wasting away in a nursing home because she quit eating the very generous portions that the staff gave her. They took good care of her.
I’d rather go like my Dad did. He went to the hospital to get his pacemaker changed, and had a heart attack and a stroke at the same time, and BOOM! He was gone. End of story.
My Dad is in his 80’s. We are fortunate enough to keep him at home, even though his needs change on a weekly, or more often now, on a day-to-day basis. Multiple health care professionals in our family, but one day, the time will come. No dementia as of yet, he is still the same ornery bastard he has always been. I will worry more when that attitude starts to wither.
His first great-grandchild was born this week.
Hallmark had a sudden shortage of store supplies…
Peace to all.
(Thanks, Poetrooper.)
Unfortunately, Poe, their answer would be euthanasia. After all, you’re in that reviled “old white people” category—though they treat old black, brown, and otherwise-pigmented people with the same disdain, they’re just a bit quieter about it. They don’t like or want old Americans of any color. Why? Because you’ve been around the block enough that you’re the age group that’s least likely to fall for their bullshit, hence you’re of no use to them. Better to get rid of you before you share that experience with younger generations.
Yes, they are peeing their pants waiting for the “old” people to die off so that they can usher in their glorious world of unicorns, fairy dust, and free everything. It will be a hell of a shock when the Gods of the Copybook Headings show up.
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”
Actually, I think they are peeing their pants waiting for the “old” people to die off so that they can get their meager savings and sell their home. It’s entitlement and greed, plain and simple.
Well cited, Commander–you should have includedthe preceding stanza:
“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man,
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;”
Kipling knew Man’s nature well…
Nailed it Poe. To pull a quote from the “My Generation” song; “…hope I die before I get old.” Too late for that for a bunch of us. Lived that whole hospital to nursing home to hospital to nursing/rehab home thing with my 2nd MiL. Medicare was squawking cause her name was still on her oldest daughter’s home, she had 0 income other than a small SS check. Hospital would keep her for 29 days, poking, prodding, and unnecessary surgeries, then stick her back in their nursing facility (different inc. sam shell owners) then put her back in icu after 28 days. They raped the taxpayers, her quality of life was for sh^t, she finally just gave up and died.
I have paid into SS/Medicare since I was 12 (66 now). I just signed up for medicare and was penalized cause I didn’t sign up when I turned 65. Was still working and had BC/BS thru the company that I was paying for. Just a few days ago they came back and told me since my income was so high in ’17 they were going to charge me an additional amount. Still on the payroll till November and BC/BS is still the primary/Medicare is secondary and I have to meet the co-pays and deductibles for each before they pay.
It burns my a$$ that we are paying enough billions every year for free sh^t for ILLEGALS that would have built a wall all the way around the Country…3 times.
In the process of putting all of my assets in my Daughter’s name and I won’t own anything. Thank God she loves her Papa.
If you were healthcare insured through your employer when you turned 65, you should not have been charged the healthcare penalty, it is in the SS/Medicare law and regs. I was almost 69 when I retired, because I had full health insurance coverage through my employment, I did not have to sign up for medicare until I retired and that insurance ended. But if your employer insurance ended and you had a gap in coverage after turning 65, you may be subject to the penalty.
That’s what I had thought rgr769. I even had to get another paper signed by my boss AND submitted the 1099 IRS form showing that I was covered by BC/BS. One reason why I had kept working is I didn’t want the hassle of SS/MC. Since I turned 66 in March, the Company has decided to medically retire me as disabled (strokes). I’ve had six (6) different letters from them (MC), all of them giving different figures. Several phone calls and I’m still dazed and confused. More paperwork to change from regular SS retirement to disability, “you’ll know in 5 – 9 months.”
I’m gonna go to the local office, again, next week and sit down with someone there and see if I can make heads or tails out of it. Failing that, ex wife # 2 worked for a SS lawer. He got crap going for people that never worked a day in their life. See what he can do for me. He was/is a good guy that I got along with. Way back in the early ’90s, she would bitch about all the deadbeats getting SSI ect.
Go to an office. You can make an appointment instead of waiting in the cue. When you speak with a person, it is much more effective than trying to solve you problem on the computer or over the phone.
Here’s an idea: how’s about each of us take care of our own da*n selves? “Free” stuff from the gubmint always costs more in time, money and aggravation than making preparations for our own old age needs.
OWB, don’t think I am advocating fully-covered long term care for all seniors because I am not. I’m all for those who can take care of themselves doing so. My purpose with this piece was to point out what treacherous chickenshits the dems are.
But since you raised the point: How many American seniors (or their children) could afford $5k to 6k per month, perhaps for years, to take care of themselves, or Mom or Dad, or worse, even twice that for Mom AND Dad? If my wife and I had lived frugally and saved every spare dime throughout our adult lives, we couldn’t carry that kind of financial burden for many years before we’d completely expend our savings and home equity. I seriously doubt there are many, if any, who frequent TAH, who could handle that kind of financial obligation for very long, if at all.
Americans routinely living into their eighties or nineties (I have now lived longer than both parents and all grandparents except one) is a phenomenon that should have been foreseen and addressed by our society; but a comprehensive program of that scope can only be undertaken through state and federal governments.
I admire your attitude of self reliance, but I fear it simply isn’t feasible in this day and age.
There are all sorts of insurance policies available, and have been for quite a few years now, to cover just about everything.
Social Security was the nose under the tent flap. All that followed resulted in where we are today.
Remember Ted Kennedy telling us that HMO’s were the solution to all our health care woes? Then a couple of decades later HMO’s are the enemy and Teddy Kennedy has a plan to fix that which he forced upon us. Incrementalism at it finest. Disgusting.
Oh, and yeah, I got where you were going with this piece. Not sure folks who are new to you and us would get that right off.
The habit of picking the lesser of two evils is responsible for us being here – having gubmint tentacles intruding in everything, while mostly ignoring those few things for which they legitimately have responsibility.
The advance of medical technology provides possibilities that never before existed. People less frequently went broke in old age because they simply died of it. There was nothing on which to go broke.
This extension of life is not free, and cannot be free. The folks who provide the care, under often very difficult conditions, will not work for free. The folks inventing artificial organs won’t work for free.
“We will -make- them give you what you want!”
Just like they made some folks pick cotton? “For the public good” of course.
You have -no- right to someone else’ labor. None. We settled that over 150 years ago, and the 13th Amendment makes it pointedly clear.
The argument is that your “need” is a demand on someone else’s “ability”, and the Party will ensure its loyal supporters get their needs filled.
Gulags TBD.
The whole point of giving massive freebies to illegals is to accelerate the collapse, so that the Revolution can replace the “failed” Free state with Socialism. Because the rubes won’t seriously vote for it as long as the Free folks keep prospering and making Socialism look stupid.
Massive waves of illegals to shift more congressional voters to the ultra-left, and more potential for vote fraud. Freebies to attract more illegals and collapse the system. Power to the Party forever.
Think that is over the top? Look at how farked-up California has become doing exactly that. And it is accelerating.
They mean to rule you, folks. And they are quite willing to wreck the nation to do it. For your own good of course.
The infamous Coward-Piven Strategy is intended to collapse social welfare systems to bring about a collapse of our form of government. By having the poor of third world countries illegally migrate into the U.S. in massive numbers, the strategy is put on steroids. The D-rats and their crypto-commie allies may succeed in making it happen.
Their actual strategy is an amalgam of both increasing their voter base and overwhelming the system to bring its collapse. If it were just about destroying the system through overspending, they could accomplish that by spending lavishly on elderly American citizens, which, by the way, I am not advocating. I merely wanted to point out what scurrilous sleazebags the dems are.
Of course, at advanced levels, incompetence can be indistinguishable from malice.
Which explains much politics.
That’s rather profound, 11B. Is that your’s originally?
Actually it is “Cloward-Piven.” Calling it Coward-Piven may have been a Freudian slip. Cuz most progs and crypto-commies are cowards.
FUCK the illegal aliens, the only thing we owe them is deportation!
^^WORD^^
Palabra!
Ok, the deal is that these Asshole liberal demorats need the votes of these over the border illegals and minority groups that are on welfare, so to keep them voting for them, they promise to keep them on the “Plantation”. This sounds like if you peeps vote for us, and just keep you on welfare and other free Gov’t handouts. This is one of the reasons that California and other possible states want voting for illegals.
My WWII dad passed away about three years ago leaving about 150K in savings that he liked to say he saved “at a dime at a time.” It went of course to my mother. But since she had been in a nursing home, that money had to go into a special needs trust so she could qualify for state Medicaid. All that money went to the state when she passed a year ago, so no inheritance for his three children. But both of them were employed their entire lives and paid into Medicare. So, I am disgusted to think these D-rat traitors want to give more of our tax dollars to third world invaders to the detriment of our own tax paying citizens. But their sole goal is patently obvious, replace U.S. citizens with ignorant people from third world shitholes, so they can cement perpetual political power. Remember, the number of residents, legal or not, determine how many representatives each state has in the House. More illegals, if counted in the census, mean more congress critters for the D-rats. But their ultimate goal is to have them voting, whether naturalized or not. Every time they talk about open borders and more freebies for the Free Shit Army (FSA), they are inducing more illegals from around the planet.
“But their sole goal is patently obvious, replace U.S. citizens with ignorant people from third world shitholes, so they can cement perpetual political power.”
That may be their plan, which is what has happened in the UK and Europe, but in those places, people who ‘migrated’ northward are sending their families back to Africa, places like Somalia (yes) and Ethiopia, because it’s safer than where they are now. That is not a joke or a rumor.
I think the brazen arrogance the Demns have been displaying for some time, and which they have now inflated drastically, is going to backfire on them very badly.
Give it some time. Every malignant cyst has a breaking point.
Let us hope.
And once they cement themselves into power they’ll go full throttle to turn our Nation into a third world shithole like every urban area lorded over by D-rats!
So true, just imagine, every city looking like San FranFeces or LA. Or the city of the perpetual gunfight, Chiraq.
The situation is not helped by folks who want to play at politics, but their strategy is “principled loss”, thus they hand victory to the enemy.
It becomes rather hard to believe there is any principle behind “let the opposition destroy Liberty”.
The Left hates Trump because he won against them, for the average American, and made it look easy.
Some on the right hate Trump for the same reasons. They look stupid because he won.
It’s politics, not Chess or Baseball. It is a dirty game. It beats hell out of “armed revolution”, from a casualty standpoint.
The average politician is in it for themselves, but weirdly expects the voters to be for the politicians, not for themselves. There is a real and dangerous fracture in that.
‘Til comes the day of the lethal loop and the lamppost…
Illegals that can’t get health insurance have free health care already and have for decades.
It is called “going to the emergency room”. Which is far more costly treatment than providing regular healthcare insurance.
Ding Ding Ding!
At one time California Voters passed a Proposition that would make it a law for Emergency Health Care Providers to Contact INS when an illegal alien came for emergency treatment.
The 9th Circus Court shot it down. About 12 years ago I took my Daughter to the Emergency Room.
The place was overcrowded with people who didn’t fucking “habla”, most of them seeking narcotic pain meds. That was one of the worst instances but everytime I go there is at least a portion of those who are milking it.
Back in 2005 or so we had some bad wildfires. A group of about a dozen illegals were camping and several of them got burned badly. US taxpayers footed the bill for their treatment at burn center.
I’m not saying we should neglect emergency cases, but once they are stable they need to be launched back across the border.
It wouldn’t hurt to bill the countries they come from either.
“Illegals”
Change that to “Anyone” and I concur.