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October 24, 2010 at 4:06 PM #623253October 24, 2010 at 5:05 PM #622174
eavesdropper
Participant[quote=bearishgurl] …..Regarding social security (OASDI and death benefits), I have posted before that I believe the current laws unjustly enrich those who never worked, did not work the required amount of quarters and minors whose deceased parent did not work enough or for a high enough wage to justify the benefits paid to them. For these reasons, I am wondering if the fund is sustainable enough for those who DID contribute the required amount of quarters of FICA to be able to receive OASDI benefits when their time comes. SS has been totally mismanaged, IMO.[/quote]
BG, with you on this one, and as you well know, I’ve ranted on this topic a few times. I’m so tired of hearing politicians go on about whether or not there will be enough to cover SS payments and Medicare for retiring seniors, yet NEVER mention the other groups that are sucking off the SS teat. There are now more applications for SS disability than there are for SS retirement payments. That’s insane! This assault on the system by the allegedly disabled has been going on since at least the late 70s, and both political parties have stood by and done absolutely nothing. This is not what the SS system was set up to do, and if the politicians decided that there had to be some sort of program for disabled Americans, they should have set up an entirely new and separate program. The umbrella has been enlarged, over and over, to the size of a circus tent, but there’s no fabric left to cover the frame.
They need to look at survivors’ benefits carefully, also. Okay, I have to make a really humiliating confession here, but please don’t let this dilute the message I am trying to send by doing so: I was watching an episode of MTV’s “Teen Mom” recently (There! I said it.), and Farrah is trying to get her 15 month-old Social Security benefits. For the uninformed, Farrah is a 17 year-old high-school dropout with a super-Christian ultra-psychotic ex-cheerleader mother who was arrested for bloodying Farah’s nose (actually, I was cheering the mom on when she did that, but she really is nucking futs!) and a baby girl who has had accidents from being left in dangerous situations so many times that betting pools have been set up in Vegas on when the kid’s going to land up in the PICU. Well, it seems that Farrah got preggers, despite getting As in her advanced-placement abstinence-only education course. She cut off contact with the 18 year-old father 3 mos. into her pregnancy, and he died in an MVA two months prior to the baby’s birth. Farrah has refused to allow the baby any contact with her father’s family, despite their attempts to do so. However, this season we were treated to harrowing scenes of an overwhelmed Farrah struggling to make it as a single teen mom (“It’s not faaaaairrr”, she sobs at regular intervals), and increasingly sentimental revisionist tales of her history with Derek (the father), ultimately revealing that Farrah plans to apply for Social Security Survivor benefits for her daughter “who deserves them”. Great! Taxpayers now get to foot the bill for at least 21 years of SS payments to a kid (actually the kid’s mother) whose sperm donor paid roughly $2.91 into the system.
Okay, I’m pissed off enough about this. But now there will be how many other 15 yr-olds out there, lucky enough to have deceased baby daddies, making a beeline for the nearest SS office so they can cash in on this bonanza. In fact, I predict some sperm donor homicide in cases where the father hasn’t had the decency to croak before his time.
Then there are the television shows and news reports on freaks of nature like Octomom and the Kirton family of “Autism x 6” who reveal how they struggle through their ordeal with NO government aid at all, but then let it slip that their offspring receive social security disability payments for ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.
The Social Security Administration’s definition of qualifying disability is as follows: “…condition must be severe enough to prevent them from doing any kind of work for which they are suited”. ANY kind of work for which they are SUITED. That doesn’t mean work that you have performed in the past, or the profession in which you got your degree. It means if you cannot work as an electrician, or as a nurse, or as a draftsman, you may have to take a job as a file clerk or a machine operator. Total disability in its genuine form is not often encountered. In FY 2009, there were over 2.8 million initial applications for disability benefits, over 430,000 more than FY 2008. In FY 2008, the number of initial applications exceeded FY ’07’s by 100,000. Does anyone else have difficulty believing that, in 2008, almost 3 million people developed a condition or sustained an injury that made them umnable to perform any type of work at all? Or that between 2007 and 2008, the number of these conditions/injuries increased by 400%?
But the Social Security Administration continues to approve the applications, and make the payments. Believe it or not, obesity is a qualifying condition, and lawyers recommend that their non-obese patients gain 60 or 70 pounds to increase their chances, not only at approval of benefits for a co-morbid condition, but at a judgement that will not be reviewed in the future, since obesity is so difficult to treat.
I can’t imagine that the fund is large enough to sustain anything NOW, much less years from now. I find it shocking enough that these kinds of payments are being made to individuals who have made little or no contribution to the fund. If lawmakers are ignoring this area of the SS crisis or, worse yet, totally unaware of it, the fallout will be devastating.
BTW, here’s a link to an interesting article published in the Washington Post last March during the health care debate. It’s about a Tea Party leader/activist, quite vocal in his calls against government intervention and interference in the lives of Americans, who apparently doesn’t object to intervention in the form of monthly disability checks. I’m experiencing some doubts regarding his claims of total disability in light of the work he does with his antigovernment group and the blog he manages to maintain. Perhaps I just don’t have a heart….
October 24, 2010 at 5:05 PM #622257Participant[quote=bearishgurl] …..Regarding social security (OASDI and death benefits), I have posted before that I believe the current laws unjustly enrich those who never worked, did not work the required amount of quarters and minors whose deceased parent did not work enough or for a high enough wage to justify the benefits paid to them. For these reasons, I am wondering if the fund is sustainable enough for those who DID contribute the required amount of quarters of FICA to be able to receive OASDI benefits when their time comes. SS has been totally mismanaged, IMO.[/quote]
BG, with you on this one, and as you well know, I’ve ranted on this topic a few times. I’m so tired of hearing politicians go on about whether or not there will be enough to cover SS payments and Medicare for retiring seniors, yet NEVER mention the other groups that are sucking off the SS teat. There are now more applications for SS disability than there are for SS retirement payments. That’s insane! This assault on the system by the allegedly disabled has been going on since at least the late 70s, and both political parties have stood by and done absolutely nothing. This is not what the SS system was set up to do, and if the politicians decided that there had to be some sort of program for disabled Americans, they should have set up an entirely new and separate program. The umbrella has been enlarged, over and over, to the size of a circus tent, but there’s no fabric left to cover the frame.
They need to look at survivors’ benefits carefully, also. Okay, I have to make a really humiliating confession here, but please don’t let this dilute the message I am trying to send by doing so: I was watching an episode of MTV’s “Teen Mom” recently (There! I said it.), and Farrah is trying to get her 15 month-old Social Security benefits. For the uninformed, Farrah is a 17 year-old high-school dropout with a super-Christian ultra-psychotic ex-cheerleader mother who was arrested for bloodying Farah’s nose (actually, I was cheering the mom on when she did that, but she really is nucking futs!) and a baby girl who has had accidents from being left in dangerous situations so many times that betting pools have been set up in Vegas on when the kid’s going to land up in the PICU. Well, it seems that Farrah got preggers, despite getting As in her advanced-placement abstinence-only education course. She cut off contact with the 18 year-old father 3 mos. into her pregnancy, and he died in an MVA two months prior to the baby’s birth. Farrah has refused to allow the baby any contact with her father’s family, despite their attempts to do so. However, this season we were treated to harrowing scenes of an overwhelmed Farrah struggling to make it as a single teen mom (“It’s not faaaaairrr”, she sobs at regular intervals), and increasingly sentimental revisionist tales of her history with Derek (the father), ultimately revealing that Farrah plans to apply for Social Security Survivor benefits for her daughter “who deserves them”. Great! Taxpayers now get to foot the bill for at least 21 years of SS payments to a kid (actually the kid’s mother) whose sperm donor paid roughly $2.91 into the system.
Okay, I’m pissed off enough about this. But now there will be how many other 15 yr-olds out there, lucky enough to have deceased baby daddies, making a beeline for the nearest SS office so they can cash in on this bonanza. In fact, I predict some sperm donor homicide in cases where the father hasn’t had the decency to croak before his time.
Then there are the television shows and news reports on freaks of nature like Octomom and the Kirton family of “Autism x 6” who reveal how they struggle through their ordeal with NO government aid at all, but then let it slip that their offspring receive social security disability payments for ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.
The Social Security Administration’s definition of qualifying disability is as follows: “…condition must be severe enough to prevent them from doing any kind of work for which they are suited”. ANY kind of work for which they are SUITED. That doesn’t mean work that you have performed in the past, or the profession in which you got your degree. It means if you cannot work as an electrician, or as a nurse, or as a draftsman, you may have to take a job as a file clerk or a machine operator. Total disability in its genuine form is not often encountered. In FY 2009, there were over 2.8 million initial applications for disability benefits, over 430,000 more than FY 2008. In FY 2008, the number of initial applications exceeded FY ’07’s by 100,000. Does anyone else have difficulty believing that, in 2008, almost 3 million people developed a condition or sustained an injury that made them umnable to perform any type of work at all? Or that between 2007 and 2008, the number of these conditions/injuries increased by 400%?
But the Social Security Administration continues to approve the applications, and make the payments. Believe it or not, obesity is a qualifying condition, and lawyers recommend that their non-obese patients gain 60 or 70 pounds to increase their chances, not only at approval of benefits for a co-morbid condition, but at a judgement that will not be reviewed in the future, since obesity is so difficult to treat.
I can’t imagine that the fund is large enough to sustain anything NOW, much less years from now. I find it shocking enough that these kinds of payments are being made to individuals who have made little or no contribution to the fund. If lawmakers are ignoring this area of the SS crisis or, worse yet, totally unaware of it, the fallout will be devastating.
BTW, here’s a link to an interesting article published in the Washington Post last March during the health care debate. It’s about a Tea Party leader/activist, quite vocal in his calls against government intervention and interference in the lives of Americans, who apparently doesn’t object to intervention in the form of monthly disability checks. I’m experiencing some doubts regarding his claims of total disability in light of the work he does with his antigovernment group and the blog he manages to maintain. Perhaps I just don’t have a heart….
October 24, 2010 at 5:05 PM #622817Participant[quote=bearishgurl] …..Regarding social security (OASDI and death benefits), I have posted before that I believe the current laws unjustly enrich those who never worked, did not work the required amount of quarters and minors whose deceased parent did not work enough or for a high enough wage to justify the benefits paid to them. For these reasons, I am wondering if the fund is sustainable enough for those who DID contribute the required amount of quarters of FICA to be able to receive OASDI benefits when their time comes. SS has been totally mismanaged, IMO.[/quote]
BG, with you on this one, and as you well know, I’ve ranted on this topic a few times. I’m so tired of hearing politicians go on about whether or not there will be enough to cover SS payments and Medicare for retiring seniors, yet NEVER mention the other groups that are sucking off the SS teat. There are now more applications for SS disability than there are for SS retirement payments. That’s insane! This assault on the system by the allegedly disabled has been going on since at least the late 70s, and both political parties have stood by and done absolutely nothing. This is not what the SS system was set up to do, and if the politicians decided that there had to be some sort of program for disabled Americans, they should have set up an entirely new and separate program. The umbrella has been enlarged, over and over, to the size of a circus tent, but there’s no fabric left to cover the frame.
They need to look at survivors’ benefits carefully, also. Okay, I have to make a really humiliating confession here, but please don’t let this dilute the message I am trying to send by doing so: I was watching an episode of MTV’s “Teen Mom” recently (There! I said it.), and Farrah is trying to get her 15 month-old Social Security benefits. For the uninformed, Farrah is a 17 year-old high-school dropout with a super-Christian ultra-psychotic ex-cheerleader mother who was arrested for bloodying Farah’s nose (actually, I was cheering the mom on when she did that, but she really is nucking futs!) and a baby girl who has had accidents from being left in dangerous situations so many times that betting pools have been set up in Vegas on when the kid’s going to land up in the PICU. Well, it seems that Farrah got preggers, despite getting As in her advanced-placement abstinence-only education course. She cut off contact with the 18 year-old father 3 mos. into her pregnancy, and he died in an MVA two months prior to the baby’s birth. Farrah has refused to allow the baby any contact with her father’s family, despite their attempts to do so. However, this season we were treated to harrowing scenes of an overwhelmed Farrah struggling to make it as a single teen mom (“It’s not faaaaairrr”, she sobs at regular intervals), and increasingly sentimental revisionist tales of her history with Derek (the father), ultimately revealing that Farrah plans to apply for Social Security Survivor benefits for her daughter “who deserves them”. Great! Taxpayers now get to foot the bill for at least 21 years of SS payments to a kid (actually the kid’s mother) whose sperm donor paid roughly $2.91 into the system.
Okay, I’m pissed off enough about this. But now there will be how many other 15 yr-olds out there, lucky enough to have deceased baby daddies, making a beeline for the nearest SS office so they can cash in on this bonanza. In fact, I predict some sperm donor homicide in cases where the father hasn’t had the decency to croak before his time.
Then there are the television shows and news reports on freaks of nature like Octomom and the Kirton family of “Autism x 6” who reveal how they struggle through their ordeal with NO government aid at all, but then let it slip that their offspring receive social security disability payments for ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.
The Social Security Administration’s definition of qualifying disability is as follows: “…condition must be severe enough to prevent them from doing any kind of work for which they are suited”. ANY kind of work for which they are SUITED. That doesn’t mean work that you have performed in the past, or the profession in which you got your degree. It means if you cannot work as an electrician, or as a nurse, or as a draftsman, you may have to take a job as a file clerk or a machine operator. Total disability in its genuine form is not often encountered. In FY 2009, there were over 2.8 million initial applications for disability benefits, over 430,000 more than FY 2008. In FY 2008, the number of initial applications exceeded FY ’07’s by 100,000. Does anyone else have difficulty believing that, in 2008, almost 3 million people developed a condition or sustained an injury that made them umnable to perform any type of work at all? Or that between 2007 and 2008, the number of these conditions/injuries increased by 400%?
But the Social Security Administration continues to approve the applications, and make the payments. Believe it or not, obesity is a qualifying condition, and lawyers recommend that their non-obese patients gain 60 or 70 pounds to increase their chances, not only at approval of benefits for a co-morbid condition, but at a judgement that will not be reviewed in the future, since obesity is so difficult to treat.
I can’t imagine that the fund is large enough to sustain anything NOW, much less years from now. I find it shocking enough that these kinds of payments are being made to individuals who have made little or no contribution to the fund. If lawmakers are ignoring this area of the SS crisis or, worse yet, totally unaware of it, the fallout will be devastating.
BTW, here’s a link to an interesting article published in the Washington Post last March during the health care debate. It’s about a Tea Party leader/activist, quite vocal in his calls against government intervention and interference in the lives of Americans, who apparently doesn’t object to intervention in the form of monthly disability checks. I’m experiencing some doubts regarding his claims of total disability in light of the work he does with his antigovernment group and the blog he manages to maintain. Perhaps I just don’t have a heart….
October 24, 2010 at 5:05 PM #622941Participant[quote=bearishgurl] …..Regarding social security (OASDI and death benefits), I have posted before that I believe the current laws unjustly enrich those who never worked, did not work the required amount of quarters and minors whose deceased parent did not work enough or for a high enough wage to justify the benefits paid to them. For these reasons, I am wondering if the fund is sustainable enough for those who DID contribute the required amount of quarters of FICA to be able to receive OASDI benefits when their time comes. SS has been totally mismanaged, IMO.[/quote]
BG, with you on this one, and as you well know, I’ve ranted on this topic a few times. I’m so tired of hearing politicians go on about whether or not there will be enough to cover SS payments and Medicare for retiring seniors, yet NEVER mention the other groups that are sucking off the SS teat. There are now more applications for SS disability than there are for SS retirement payments. That’s insane! This assault on the system by the allegedly disabled has been going on since at least the late 70s, and both political parties have stood by and done absolutely nothing. This is not what the SS system was set up to do, and if the politicians decided that there had to be some sort of program for disabled Americans, they should have set up an entirely new and separate program. The umbrella has been enlarged, over and over, to the size of a circus tent, but there’s no fabric left to cover the frame.
They need to look at survivors’ benefits carefully, also. Okay, I have to make a really humiliating confession here, but please don’t let this dilute the message I am trying to send by doing so: I was watching an episode of MTV’s “Teen Mom” recently (There! I said it.), and Farrah is trying to get her 15 month-old Social Security benefits. For the uninformed, Farrah is a 17 year-old high-school dropout with a super-Christian ultra-psychotic ex-cheerleader mother who was arrested for bloodying Farah’s nose (actually, I was cheering the mom on when she did that, but she really is nucking futs!) and a baby girl who has had accidents from being left in dangerous situations so many times that betting pools have been set up in Vegas on when the kid’s going to land up in the PICU. Well, it seems that Farrah got preggers, despite getting As in her advanced-placement abstinence-only education course. She cut off contact with the 18 year-old father 3 mos. into her pregnancy, and he died in an MVA two months prior to the baby’s birth. Farrah has refused to allow the baby any contact with her father’s family, despite their attempts to do so. However, this season we were treated to harrowing scenes of an overwhelmed Farrah struggling to make it as a single teen mom (“It’s not faaaaairrr”, she sobs at regular intervals), and increasingly sentimental revisionist tales of her history with Derek (the father), ultimately revealing that Farrah plans to apply for Social Security Survivor benefits for her daughter “who deserves them”. Great! Taxpayers now get to foot the bill for at least 21 years of SS payments to a kid (actually the kid’s mother) whose sperm donor paid roughly $2.91 into the system.
Okay, I’m pissed off enough about this. But now there will be how many other 15 yr-olds out there, lucky enough to have deceased baby daddies, making a beeline for the nearest SS office so they can cash in on this bonanza. In fact, I predict some sperm donor homicide in cases where the father hasn’t had the decency to croak before his time.
Then there are the television shows and news reports on freaks of nature like Octomom and the Kirton family of “Autism x 6” who reveal how they struggle through their ordeal with NO government aid at all, but then let it slip that their offspring receive social security disability payments for ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.
The Social Security Administration’s definition of qualifying disability is as follows: “…condition must be severe enough to prevent them from doing any kind of work for which they are suited”. ANY kind of work for which they are SUITED. That doesn’t mean work that you have performed in the past, or the profession in which you got your degree. It means if you cannot work as an electrician, or as a nurse, or as a draftsman, you may have to take a job as a file clerk or a machine operator. Total disability in its genuine form is not often encountered. In FY 2009, there were over 2.8 million initial applications for disability benefits, over 430,000 more than FY 2008. In FY 2008, the number of initial applications exceeded FY ’07’s by 100,000. Does anyone else have difficulty believing that, in 2008, almost 3 million people developed a condition or sustained an injury that made them umnable to perform any type of work at all? Or that between 2007 and 2008, the number of these conditions/injuries increased by 400%?
But the Social Security Administration continues to approve the applications, and make the payments. Believe it or not, obesity is a qualifying condition, and lawyers recommend that their non-obese patients gain 60 or 70 pounds to increase their chances, not only at approval of benefits for a co-morbid condition, but at a judgement that will not be reviewed in the future, since obesity is so difficult to treat.
I can’t imagine that the fund is large enough to sustain anything NOW, much less years from now. I find it shocking enough that these kinds of payments are being made to individuals who have made little or no contribution to the fund. If lawmakers are ignoring this area of the SS crisis or, worse yet, totally unaware of it, the fallout will be devastating.
BTW, here’s a link to an interesting article published in the Washington Post last March during the health care debate. It’s about a Tea Party leader/activist, quite vocal in his calls against government intervention and interference in the lives of Americans, who apparently doesn’t object to intervention in the form of monthly disability checks. I’m experiencing some doubts regarding his claims of total disability in light of the work he does with his antigovernment group and the blog he manages to maintain. Perhaps I just don’t have a heart….
October 24, 2010 at 5:05 PM #623258Participant[quote=bearishgurl] …..Regarding social security (OASDI and death benefits), I have posted before that I believe the current laws unjustly enrich those who never worked, did not work the required amount of quarters and minors whose deceased parent did not work enough or for a high enough wage to justify the benefits paid to them. For these reasons, I am wondering if the fund is sustainable enough for those who DID contribute the required amount of quarters of FICA to be able to receive OASDI benefits when their time comes. SS has been totally mismanaged, IMO.[/quote]
BG, with you on this one, and as you well know, I’ve ranted on this topic a few times. I’m so tired of hearing politicians go on about whether or not there will be enough to cover SS payments and Medicare for retiring seniors, yet NEVER mention the other groups that are sucking off the SS teat. There are now more applications for SS disability than there are for SS retirement payments. That’s insane! This assault on the system by the allegedly disabled has been going on since at least the late 70s, and both political parties have stood by and done absolutely nothing. This is not what the SS system was set up to do, and if the politicians decided that there had to be some sort of program for disabled Americans, they should have set up an entirely new and separate program. The umbrella has been enlarged, over and over, to the size of a circus tent, but there’s no fabric left to cover the frame.
They need to look at survivors’ benefits carefully, also. Okay, I have to make a really humiliating confession here, but please don’t let this dilute the message I am trying to send by doing so: I was watching an episode of MTV’s “Teen Mom” recently (There! I said it.), and Farrah is trying to get her 15 month-old Social Security benefits. For the uninformed, Farrah is a 17 year-old high-school dropout with a super-Christian ultra-psychotic ex-cheerleader mother who was arrested for bloodying Farah’s nose (actually, I was cheering the mom on when she did that, but she really is nucking futs!) and a baby girl who has had accidents from being left in dangerous situations so many times that betting pools have been set up in Vegas on when the kid’s going to land up in the PICU. Well, it seems that Farrah got preggers, despite getting As in her advanced-placement abstinence-only education course. She cut off contact with the 18 year-old father 3 mos. into her pregnancy, and he died in an MVA two months prior to the baby’s birth. Farrah has refused to allow the baby any contact with her father’s family, despite their attempts to do so. However, this season we were treated to harrowing scenes of an overwhelmed Farrah struggling to make it as a single teen mom (“It’s not faaaaairrr”, she sobs at regular intervals), and increasingly sentimental revisionist tales of her history with Derek (the father), ultimately revealing that Farrah plans to apply for Social Security Survivor benefits for her daughter “who deserves them”. Great! Taxpayers now get to foot the bill for at least 21 years of SS payments to a kid (actually the kid’s mother) whose sperm donor paid roughly $2.91 into the system.
Okay, I’m pissed off enough about this. But now there will be how many other 15 yr-olds out there, lucky enough to have deceased baby daddies, making a beeline for the nearest SS office so they can cash in on this bonanza. In fact, I predict some sperm donor homicide in cases where the father hasn’t had the decency to croak before his time.
Then there are the television shows and news reports on freaks of nature like Octomom and the Kirton family of “Autism x 6” who reveal how they struggle through their ordeal with NO government aid at all, but then let it slip that their offspring receive social security disability payments for ADHD and Asperger’s Syndrome.
The Social Security Administration’s definition of qualifying disability is as follows: “…condition must be severe enough to prevent them from doing any kind of work for which they are suited”. ANY kind of work for which they are SUITED. That doesn’t mean work that you have performed in the past, or the profession in which you got your degree. It means if you cannot work as an electrician, or as a nurse, or as a draftsman, you may have to take a job as a file clerk or a machine operator. Total disability in its genuine form is not often encountered. In FY 2009, there were over 2.8 million initial applications for disability benefits, over 430,000 more than FY 2008. In FY 2008, the number of initial applications exceeded FY ’07’s by 100,000. Does anyone else have difficulty believing that, in 2008, almost 3 million people developed a condition or sustained an injury that made them umnable to perform any type of work at all? Or that between 2007 and 2008, the number of these conditions/injuries increased by 400%?
But the Social Security Administration continues to approve the applications, and make the payments. Believe it or not, obesity is a qualifying condition, and lawyers recommend that their non-obese patients gain 60 or 70 pounds to increase their chances, not only at approval of benefits for a co-morbid condition, but at a judgement that will not be reviewed in the future, since obesity is so difficult to treat.
I can’t imagine that the fund is large enough to sustain anything NOW, much less years from now. I find it shocking enough that these kinds of payments are being made to individuals who have made little or no contribution to the fund. If lawmakers are ignoring this area of the SS crisis or, worse yet, totally unaware of it, the fallout will be devastating.
BTW, here’s a link to an interesting article published in the Washington Post last March during the health care debate. It’s about a Tea Party leader/activist, quite vocal in his calls against government intervention and interference in the lives of Americans, who apparently doesn’t object to intervention in the form of monthly disability checks. I’m experiencing some doubts regarding his claims of total disability in light of the work he does with his antigovernment group and the blog he manages to maintain. Perhaps I just don’t have a heart….
October 24, 2010 at 6:06 PM #622184Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=GH] . . . Regular things like prescriptions, doctors visits, tests etc, should be paid for by individuals. The whole thing should work a lot more like car insurance, where the insurance company only gets involved where a big problem is involved, not for day to day needs.[/quote]
Absolutely, GH! But there are a LOT of people who think they need to make a dr. appt. for everyone in their family for a hangnail or the common cold. These are the ones “clogging the system” with low co-pays and a lot of time on their hands.
These types make it expensive for ALL of us![/quote]
And I definitely like this. The cost of health care will never go down until it becomes competitive. And competition will never come to pass until people become consumers – actual consumers who shop for and compare providers, tests, drugs, etc., and rate their quality and cost-effectiveness. Admittedly, it’s not the same as buying produce at the Safeway, and I don’t mean to downplay the complexity and importance. But until people have more of an investment in the system, things won’t change. People that are heavily insured and who do not experience serious illness, either personally or in their families, are too far removed from the shortcomings and problems of the system to be affected by them. It’s the people who are affected by them that effect change. We need to move people closer to the system, and the suggestions from GH and BG are a good way to do that. Not only will this help to remedy the problems of the existing system, it will significantly reduce the rate of trivial overutilization.
Also, I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve experienced regular yearly increases in health insurance premiums since the early 90s, at least. This period spans three employers for me, and three for my husband. Every year, we have to pay a larger amount in monthly premium share, which typically reflects a premium hike by the insurer being passed onto employees. Less frequently, our co-pays go up.
Interestingly enough, for those Piggs who have voiced complaints about the health benefits of Federal employees: my husband recently returned to Federal government employment. He is at a high level (as a result of both extensive education and experience), but his pay is comparable to, or a bit less than that offered by private industry (where he has toiled for the past fifteen years). Of the many choices offered, out of medical necessity we enrolled in the most expensive health plan that provided the best coverage across the board. The coverage is must less comprehensive than either of us had in private industry/education, and we are paying much more in out of pocket expenses. For instance, I’ve never paid anything for mammography or ultrasound or MRI examination of the breast; however, I can now look forward to ponying up a couple hundred dollars for the privilege and pleasure of the GE Senographe DMR+ experience, i.e., the equivalent of having the my tits repeatedly put through a wringer washer. For those of you too young to know what that is, I’ve included a link to YouTube footage (is there ANYTHING people won’t put on film?); the comparison to mammography starts about 1 minute into the film clip.
I hope that I’ve cleared up a bit of the misinformation concerning the high life of Federal government employees.
October 24, 2010 at 6:06 PM #622267Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=GH] . . . Regular things like prescriptions, doctors visits, tests etc, should be paid for by individuals. The whole thing should work a lot more like car insurance, where the insurance company only gets involved where a big problem is involved, not for day to day needs.[/quote]
Absolutely, GH! But there are a LOT of people who think they need to make a dr. appt. for everyone in their family for a hangnail or the common cold. These are the ones “clogging the system” with low co-pays and a lot of time on their hands.
These types make it expensive for ALL of us![/quote]
And I definitely like this. The cost of health care will never go down until it becomes competitive. And competition will never come to pass until people become consumers – actual consumers who shop for and compare providers, tests, drugs, etc., and rate their quality and cost-effectiveness. Admittedly, it’s not the same as buying produce at the Safeway, and I don’t mean to downplay the complexity and importance. But until people have more of an investment in the system, things won’t change. People that are heavily insured and who do not experience serious illness, either personally or in their families, are too far removed from the shortcomings and problems of the system to be affected by them. It’s the people who are affected by them that effect change. We need to move people closer to the system, and the suggestions from GH and BG are a good way to do that. Not only will this help to remedy the problems of the existing system, it will significantly reduce the rate of trivial overutilization.
Also, I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve experienced regular yearly increases in health insurance premiums since the early 90s, at least. This period spans three employers for me, and three for my husband. Every year, we have to pay a larger amount in monthly premium share, which typically reflects a premium hike by the insurer being passed onto employees. Less frequently, our co-pays go up.
Interestingly enough, for those Piggs who have voiced complaints about the health benefits of Federal employees: my husband recently returned to Federal government employment. He is at a high level (as a result of both extensive education and experience), but his pay is comparable to, or a bit less than that offered by private industry (where he has toiled for the past fifteen years). Of the many choices offered, out of medical necessity we enrolled in the most expensive health plan that provided the best coverage across the board. The coverage is must less comprehensive than either of us had in private industry/education, and we are paying much more in out of pocket expenses. For instance, I’ve never paid anything for mammography or ultrasound or MRI examination of the breast; however, I can now look forward to ponying up a couple hundred dollars for the privilege and pleasure of the GE Senographe DMR+ experience, i.e., the equivalent of having the my tits repeatedly put through a wringer washer. For those of you too young to know what that is, I’ve included a link to YouTube footage (is there ANYTHING people won’t put on film?); the comparison to mammography starts about 1 minute into the film clip.
I hope that I’ve cleared up a bit of the misinformation concerning the high life of Federal government employees.
October 24, 2010 at 6:06 PM #622827Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=GH] . . . Regular things like prescriptions, doctors visits, tests etc, should be paid for by individuals. The whole thing should work a lot more like car insurance, where the insurance company only gets involved where a big problem is involved, not for day to day needs.[/quote]
Absolutely, GH! But there are a LOT of people who think they need to make a dr. appt. for everyone in their family for a hangnail or the common cold. These are the ones “clogging the system” with low co-pays and a lot of time on their hands.
These types make it expensive for ALL of us![/quote]
And I definitely like this. The cost of health care will never go down until it becomes competitive. And competition will never come to pass until people become consumers – actual consumers who shop for and compare providers, tests, drugs, etc., and rate their quality and cost-effectiveness. Admittedly, it’s not the same as buying produce at the Safeway, and I don’t mean to downplay the complexity and importance. But until people have more of an investment in the system, things won’t change. People that are heavily insured and who do not experience serious illness, either personally or in their families, are too far removed from the shortcomings and problems of the system to be affected by them. It’s the people who are affected by them that effect change. We need to move people closer to the system, and the suggestions from GH and BG are a good way to do that. Not only will this help to remedy the problems of the existing system, it will significantly reduce the rate of trivial overutilization.
Also, I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve experienced regular yearly increases in health insurance premiums since the early 90s, at least. This period spans three employers for me, and three for my husband. Every year, we have to pay a larger amount in monthly premium share, which typically reflects a premium hike by the insurer being passed onto employees. Less frequently, our co-pays go up.
Interestingly enough, for those Piggs who have voiced complaints about the health benefits of Federal employees: my husband recently returned to Federal government employment. He is at a high level (as a result of both extensive education and experience), but his pay is comparable to, or a bit less than that offered by private industry (where he has toiled for the past fifteen years). Of the many choices offered, out of medical necessity we enrolled in the most expensive health plan that provided the best coverage across the board. The coverage is must less comprehensive than either of us had in private industry/education, and we are paying much more in out of pocket expenses. For instance, I’ve never paid anything for mammography or ultrasound or MRI examination of the breast; however, I can now look forward to ponying up a couple hundred dollars for the privilege and pleasure of the GE Senographe DMR+ experience, i.e., the equivalent of having the my tits repeatedly put through a wringer washer. For those of you too young to know what that is, I’ve included a link to YouTube footage (is there ANYTHING people won’t put on film?); the comparison to mammography starts about 1 minute into the film clip.
I hope that I’ve cleared up a bit of the misinformation concerning the high life of Federal government employees.
October 24, 2010 at 6:06 PM #622951Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=GH] . . . Regular things like prescriptions, doctors visits, tests etc, should be paid for by individuals. The whole thing should work a lot more like car insurance, where the insurance company only gets involved where a big problem is involved, not for day to day needs.[/quote]
Absolutely, GH! But there are a LOT of people who think they need to make a dr. appt. for everyone in their family for a hangnail or the common cold. These are the ones “clogging the system” with low co-pays and a lot of time on their hands.
These types make it expensive for ALL of us![/quote]
And I definitely like this. The cost of health care will never go down until it becomes competitive. And competition will never come to pass until people become consumers – actual consumers who shop for and compare providers, tests, drugs, etc., and rate their quality and cost-effectiveness. Admittedly, it’s not the same as buying produce at the Safeway, and I don’t mean to downplay the complexity and importance. But until people have more of an investment in the system, things won’t change. People that are heavily insured and who do not experience serious illness, either personally or in their families, are too far removed from the shortcomings and problems of the system to be affected by them. It’s the people who are affected by them that effect change. We need to move people closer to the system, and the suggestions from GH and BG are a good way to do that. Not only will this help to remedy the problems of the existing system, it will significantly reduce the rate of trivial overutilization.
Also, I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve experienced regular yearly increases in health insurance premiums since the early 90s, at least. This period spans three employers for me, and three for my husband. Every year, we have to pay a larger amount in monthly premium share, which typically reflects a premium hike by the insurer being passed onto employees. Less frequently, our co-pays go up.
Interestingly enough, for those Piggs who have voiced complaints about the health benefits of Federal employees: my husband recently returned to Federal government employment. He is at a high level (as a result of both extensive education and experience), but his pay is comparable to, or a bit less than that offered by private industry (where he has toiled for the past fifteen years). Of the many choices offered, out of medical necessity we enrolled in the most expensive health plan that provided the best coverage across the board. The coverage is must less comprehensive than either of us had in private industry/education, and we are paying much more in out of pocket expenses. For instance, I’ve never paid anything for mammography or ultrasound or MRI examination of the breast; however, I can now look forward to ponying up a couple hundred dollars for the privilege and pleasure of the GE Senographe DMR+ experience, i.e., the equivalent of having the my tits repeatedly put through a wringer washer. For those of you too young to know what that is, I’ve included a link to YouTube footage (is there ANYTHING people won’t put on film?); the comparison to mammography starts about 1 minute into the film clip.
I hope that I’ve cleared up a bit of the misinformation concerning the high life of Federal government employees.
October 24, 2010 at 6:06 PM #623268Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=GH] . . . Regular things like prescriptions, doctors visits, tests etc, should be paid for by individuals. The whole thing should work a lot more like car insurance, where the insurance company only gets involved where a big problem is involved, not for day to day needs.[/quote]
Absolutely, GH! But there are a LOT of people who think they need to make a dr. appt. for everyone in their family for a hangnail or the common cold. These are the ones “clogging the system” with low co-pays and a lot of time on their hands.
These types make it expensive for ALL of us![/quote]
And I definitely like this. The cost of health care will never go down until it becomes competitive. And competition will never come to pass until people become consumers – actual consumers who shop for and compare providers, tests, drugs, etc., and rate their quality and cost-effectiveness. Admittedly, it’s not the same as buying produce at the Safeway, and I don’t mean to downplay the complexity and importance. But until people have more of an investment in the system, things won’t change. People that are heavily insured and who do not experience serious illness, either personally or in their families, are too far removed from the shortcomings and problems of the system to be affected by them. It’s the people who are affected by them that effect change. We need to move people closer to the system, and the suggestions from GH and BG are a good way to do that. Not only will this help to remedy the problems of the existing system, it will significantly reduce the rate of trivial overutilization.
Also, I don’t know about everyone else, but I’ve experienced regular yearly increases in health insurance premiums since the early 90s, at least. This period spans three employers for me, and three for my husband. Every year, we have to pay a larger amount in monthly premium share, which typically reflects a premium hike by the insurer being passed onto employees. Less frequently, our co-pays go up.
Interestingly enough, for those Piggs who have voiced complaints about the health benefits of Federal employees: my husband recently returned to Federal government employment. He is at a high level (as a result of both extensive education and experience), but his pay is comparable to, or a bit less than that offered by private industry (where he has toiled for the past fifteen years). Of the many choices offered, out of medical necessity we enrolled in the most expensive health plan that provided the best coverage across the board. The coverage is must less comprehensive than either of us had in private industry/education, and we are paying much more in out of pocket expenses. For instance, I’ve never paid anything for mammography or ultrasound or MRI examination of the breast; however, I can now look forward to ponying up a couple hundred dollars for the privilege and pleasure of the GE Senographe DMR+ experience, i.e., the equivalent of having the my tits repeatedly put through a wringer washer. For those of you too young to know what that is, I’ve included a link to YouTube footage (is there ANYTHING people won’t put on film?); the comparison to mammography starts about 1 minute into the film clip.
I hope that I’ve cleared up a bit of the misinformation concerning the high life of Federal government employees.
October 24, 2010 at 9:08 PM #622214bearishgurl
Participanteavesdropper, thanks for mentioning all the adults on “`questionable’ SS disability compensation” (SSD) as well as kids qualifying for the same program (based alone upon their being prescribed Ritalin for “ADHD”) . . . lol. It is little known by the public that the SSD (and the “SSI” program) has been raiding the OASDI program since their inception. These (over)payments to individuals who fed no FICA payments into the “system” are/will actually take away from those who did.
Many SSI recipients are simply immigrants who were brought into this country (when they were already over 60 years of age) by “sponsors” who promised the INS that they would financially support them for life as a condition of their residency and eventual green card. When the sponsor(s) fell on “hard times” (i.e. lived beyond their means, overmortgaged their propertie(s), etc.), they claimed they were no longer able to “support” their elderly relative (still living with them) so the relative applied for SSI (to help with household income). MANY were successful (esp. here in South County).
eavesdropper, you are absolutely correct in that the government and Congress are “looking the the other way” from this (and the aforementioned “loopholes”) when trying to determime why the OASDI fund may not be solvent for you and me to collect when our time comes (God forbid should any younger Piggs EVER be able to). The working public should be very angered by these systematic raids of their FICA withholdings to this Ponzi scheme for which the uses of the $$ are allocated at the whim of whoever’s currently supposed to be “minding the store.” I for one am outraged, but a fat lot of good this will do me :=[
October 24, 2010 at 9:08 PM #622297Participanteavesdropper, thanks for mentioning all the adults on “`questionable’ SS disability compensation” (SSD) as well as kids qualifying for the same program (based alone upon their being prescribed Ritalin for “ADHD”) . . . lol. It is little known by the public that the SSD (and the “SSI” program) has been raiding the OASDI program since their inception. These (over)payments to individuals who fed no FICA payments into the “system” are/will actually take away from those who did.
Many SSI recipients are simply immigrants who were brought into this country (when they were already over 60 years of age) by “sponsors” who promised the INS that they would financially support them for life as a condition of their residency and eventual green card. When the sponsor(s) fell on “hard times” (i.e. lived beyond their means, overmortgaged their propertie(s), etc.), they claimed they were no longer able to “support” their elderly relative (still living with them) so the relative applied for SSI (to help with household income). MANY were successful (esp. here in South County).
eavesdropper, you are absolutely correct in that the government and Congress are “looking the the other way” from this (and the aforementioned “loopholes”) when trying to determime why the OASDI fund may not be solvent for you and me to collect when our time comes (God forbid should any younger Piggs EVER be able to). The working public should be very angered by these systematic raids of their FICA withholdings to this Ponzi scheme for which the uses of the $$ are allocated at the whim of whoever’s currently supposed to be “minding the store.” I for one am outraged, but a fat lot of good this will do me :=[
October 24, 2010 at 9:08 PM #622857Participanteavesdropper, thanks for mentioning all the adults on “`questionable’ SS disability compensation” (SSD) as well as kids qualifying for the same program (based alone upon their being prescribed Ritalin for “ADHD”) . . . lol. It is little known by the public that the SSD (and the “SSI” program) has been raiding the OASDI program since their inception. These (over)payments to individuals who fed no FICA payments into the “system” are/will actually take away from those who did.
Many SSI recipients are simply immigrants who were brought into this country (when they were already over 60 years of age) by “sponsors” who promised the INS that they would financially support them for life as a condition of their residency and eventual green card. When the sponsor(s) fell on “hard times” (i.e. lived beyond their means, overmortgaged their propertie(s), etc.), they claimed they were no longer able to “support” their elderly relative (still living with them) so the relative applied for SSI (to help with household income). MANY were successful (esp. here in South County).
eavesdropper, you are absolutely correct in that the government and Congress are “looking the the other way” from this (and the aforementioned “loopholes”) when trying to determime why the OASDI fund may not be solvent for you and me to collect when our time comes (God forbid should any younger Piggs EVER be able to). The working public should be very angered by these systematic raids of their FICA withholdings to this Ponzi scheme for which the uses of the $$ are allocated at the whim of whoever’s currently supposed to be “minding the store.” I for one am outraged, but a fat lot of good this will do me :=[
October 24, 2010 at 9:08 PM #622981Participanteavesdropper, thanks for mentioning all the adults on “`questionable’ SS disability compensation” (SSD) as well as kids qualifying for the same program (based alone upon their being prescribed Ritalin for “ADHD”) . . . lol. It is little known by the public that the SSD (and the “SSI” program) has been raiding the OASDI program since their inception. These (over)payments to individuals who fed no FICA payments into the “system” are/will actually take away from those who did.
Many SSI recipients are simply immigrants who were brought into this country (when they were already over 60 years of age) by “sponsors” who promised the INS that they would financially support them for life as a condition of their residency and eventual green card. When the sponsor(s) fell on “hard times” (i.e. lived beyond their means, overmortgaged their propertie(s), etc.), they claimed they were no longer able to “support” their elderly relative (still living with them) so the relative applied for SSI (to help with household income). MANY were successful (esp. here in South County).
eavesdropper, you are absolutely correct in that the government and Congress are “looking the the other way” from this (and the aforementioned “loopholes”) when trying to determime why the OASDI fund may not be solvent for you and me to collect when our time comes (God forbid should any younger Piggs EVER be able to). The working public should be very angered by these systematic raids of their FICA withholdings to this Ponzi scheme for which the uses of the $$ are allocated at the whim of whoever’s currently supposed to be “minding the store.” I for one am outraged, but a fat lot of good this will do me :=[
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