Picayune Gods & Those Who Market Them

Or at the very least keep far too many of those boats from sinking.Our (CSU Fullerton) OLLI's Transitions in Retirement (TIR) presentation on Social Security mainly covered Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability benefits and funding. The presentation described Social Security as a poverty prevention program. That means that you're not supposed to live on it, but rather it is supposed to help keep you from going broke -- I'm one of the exceptions in that my SS check covers almost all my expenses because I'm lucky enough to have had higher earnings which qualifies me to receive near the maximum SS benefit, plus I owe nothing on my condo and car and my medical expenses are nearly non-existent because of my military retirement benefits ... and Medicare.Most SS recipients are expected to have also paid into retirement plans which their SS benefits only supplements. The problem with that is that too many people have to struggle just to get by so they don't have enough to put away for retirement. Couple that with lost savings and lost home equity due to failures of the banking system (eg, the Great Depression, the 2008 housing market collapse) and you have large segments of the population unable to retire ... and then becoming physically incapable of working, unable to feed themselves or to keep a roof over their heads, etc. Basically Social Security was created to handle just those kinds of problems going into the 1930's after everybody's retirement plans were destroyed when the stock market crashed.And the plans to privatize Social Security would lead to the same vulnerability to market crashes that SS was created to eliminate.Similarly, Medicare does not pay for all our medical expenses, but rather for only 80% of it. That is why we need to find ways to pay the other 20%, usually through supplemental plans. And again, it's more for the prevention of poverty.I don't have the figures yet on my third major medical event (Apr 2022), but the two previous ones cost $65,000 and $81,000 respectively -- I would assume that this third one costed about the same if not more. That amounted to $146,000 dollars and this third one would most likely have bumped that up to $200,000. That's a mortgage! So after having spent 30 years of your life paying off your home, you now need another 30 years to pay off your medical bills? For far too many Americans, a major medical event causes financial ruin. And of course private medical insurance is not only too expensive, but it keeps getting more and more expensive as we grow older and more of a risk at the same time that our ability to earn all that money diminishes or disappears.Raising all boats with the same tide is a worthy goal. But at the very least we need to keep half the boats from sinking.

It appears that your paranoia about the left and "globalists" (whatever the hell that is supposed to be about ... other than yet another dog whistle like "evolutionist") is blinding you to the actual threat to your wellbeing in retirement and before. And what faction in the government would endanger that? The left who created the social safety net that includes Social Security and Medicare and who supports the continuation of those and other programs that try to get affordable health care and job and housing security to the people? No, rather it's the so-called "Right" who have openly advocated for the elimination of that social safety net (refer to Rick Scott's draft of the GOP policy), who pushed for "repeal and replacement" of "Obamacare" solely by eliminating it without any hint of a replacement (nor any attempt to even begin to plan for one), Republican governors refusing federal funds to expand Medicaid benefits to their state (which resulted not only in individuals and families going bankrupt due to medical bills, but also many rural hospitals to close thus eliminating access to medical care even for those still able to pay for it), voting against every bill for reducing medical costs or for getting inflation under control, etc. First, nobody is talking about mandating that, though the "Right" is by default wanting you go give up everything for the good of their corporate donors (eg, blowing a huge hole in the deficit under Trump with their massive "tax cut" for the upper fraction-of-one-percent).My mind keeps circling back to medical costs. I should be safe since through my military retirement I have good medical benefits at no cost to me (outside of the regular premiums for Medicare Part B and federal employees' dental and vision insurance), though GOP ideologues will undoubtedly try to hold that funding hostage over bullshit as Sen Tuberville is currently doing with national security.Medical costs can mount in an instant and wipe out a family's financial security. I've had three hospitalizations since 2011. The first one cost $65,000, the second one cost $81,000, and I have not yet noted the cost of the third. All three were covered by my medical insurance, but if I had to pay that entirely out of pocket that $146,000 (not including the third) would amount to an entire new mortgage which would take 30 years to pay off. And that amount is small compared to the medical bills that other families could rack up. Without medical insurance (which for most is only available through work, assuming you're not working a company like Walmart who limits work hours in order to avoid paying for medical benefits), one bad medical issue can bankrupt the family potentially sending them out on the street (or under the bridge in your case).There are government programs to help, but eligibility and administration is mainly on the state and local level. Thanks mainly to Republican state governments, in many red states one is not eligible for such aid so long as one has any assets. You are literally required to lose everything before you can even begin to qualify for help. And if your family is trying to care for you, then they must lose everything as well -- hence, families are being required by red states to basically abandon their family members.The left tries to keep that from happening.Of course that needs to be fact checked, but it does describe what the "Right" (a better name would be "The Wrong") keeps pushing for and voting for. What the fuck are you talking about?