I have not followed it too much so forgive me if I sound jerky, but shouldn't people have planned better for their retirement. It seems like the "seniors" are all relying on the Gov't for their retirement $ (Social Security) and the Gov't to pay all of the medical bills (Medicare) and prescriptions.

Not to put out old people who have no money, but who's fault is it that they have no money? Maybe they should limit the # of prescriptions? I think the average 75 year old has to carry a tackle box around with all the damned prescriptions.

What is normal for other countries?

There will clearly be no $ left when I am 60 years old (26 years from now).

 

Today's seniors were promised the benefits and many of them relied on that--that's how Social Security was sold to the American public. These folks are also living on fixed incomes from retirement plans or social security which makes them less able to absorb unexpected cost increases such as property taxes going up.

An example--my grandmother drew $600 a month from Social Security and her prescriptions were a bit over $600 a month. Without Medicare she would have had no money--and she was in a better spot than some seniors since her home had been paid off for decades and she had a family willing and financially able to help care for her.

Limit medications? Sure---you walk through the doctor's office and pick whose grandma doesn't get blood pressure meds. With that said, I do think there's a tendency to over medicate--but that's something doctors have to fix themselves rather than some gov't worker sitting in an office in Tulsa. Where's Tenblade?

Then throw in the fact that families aren't willing to take their seniors in anymore and that means additional nursing home costs--as the boomers age the money is not going to be there. I don't plan on ever seeing a dime from Social Security or Medicare.

Best advice you'll get today is to look into long term care insurance. It's so cheap while we're young...

 

Social security is a broken system...the number of people paying in is rapidly approaching the number receiving benefits, as the baby boomers start to retire. Basically, it means I'm going to be paying for all you old farts, and as long as I'm going to reap the benefits i'm down...but the fact is that if the system stays like it is right now, it will collapse. aka I get nothing back from what i Paid in. AKA I'm definitely not down with it.

I think medicare is ridiculous too, but instead of reducing benefits the system needs to work to drive down the cost of medical care. sure, cutting edge technologies will always be expensive, but the cost of care in the US is greater than any other country by quite a large margin. medications are far cheaper in other countries, and people need to start shopping around to avoid price gouging. I mean, would you buy a car without shopping around for the best price? why pay out the a$$ for prescriptions? In Britain, they run on standardized health care for everyone. dunno about the rest of the world. but i agree that medicare is a crock, sucks for me because now retirees are receiving benefits proportionally larger than what they paid in, while i'll get back less than my total input.

Quick2k

 

Medicare is a big mess.

I'm not sure if there is a good solution right now.

 

And the government wants how many billions of dollars to fund a war?

 

whoops, my computer decided to post before I finished writing....

anyhoo,

Scot, you're right. People should be saving for their retirement but people simply don't.
However, we can't not treat senior citizens just b/c they don't have $$.
jmc, "Doctor overmedicate"? That's a gross over generalization. Please provide some evidences. Until you can give me some concrete reasons, that statement is invalid unless you can show that less medications is better than more meds...

BTW, If you think medicare is bad, you won't want to know about Medi-CAL (it's ten time worse).

 

you might be interested in this article

http://slate.msn.com/id/2092302/

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by S2020
whoops, my computer decided to post before I finished writing....

anyhoo,

Scot, you're right.

 

good article....... nothing against poor older people, but geez. I personally would feel like an ass if I knew i was milking it for free.... maybe that is just me... but I like to pay my own way or I don't play / participate.... maybe if i were older and poor I would think differently.?

I guess part of the problem is the drug manufacturers ripping the old folks........for some reason the same drugs in canada are way way cheaper than here in the USA.........

slightly off topic

I always wonder what goes through the head of a person who is chronically ill and costs someone $100k per year just in operations, medications, etc..... and they contribute absolutely nothing to society. a lady at work has a miserable as hell husband who has costs hundreds of thousands just in the last 10 years... (he is about 60 right now and paralized)... he has been a miserable jerk just about all his life though.....

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Scot
...but shouldn't people have planned better for their retirement.