By Keith C. Milne
I am the guy in my family that takes care of all things monetary. A few years ago, my spouse retired and began a new chapter in her life. Little did I know then that it would also be a new chapter for me regarding deciphering all things governmental and medicare!!
Like it or not, for virtually all of us, we MUST sign up for medicare once reaching the age of 65, retired or not. Trust me, you won’t like the LIFETIME premium penalty you’ll pay if you do not do this. Okay, no sweat, DONE. Next? Not so fast. A trip to HR, filling out some forms and now you have to start carrying another card in your wallet, and pulling out multiple cards at doctor’s offices or when filling out insurance forms. Nothing new here.
Once you retire and medicare becomes active, your medical care costs are split between Medicare and any other insurance you might have to help with the things that Medicare doesn’t cover, which are numerous. All of a sudden, it seems like your personal out-of-pocket expenses are less because more seems to be covered between medicare and the insurance company.
When this happened in my household, I remember thinking to myself “Oh, awesome! Finally a break, finally a little perk for working for nearly the last half century!” Additionally, the premiums for the supplemental insurance were reasonable, so I was a happy guy about the financial implications of this unexpected windfall. I knew there would be premiums to pay for being on Medicare, but I had no idea they would be almost as high as having private insurance.
Then, like in all good stories, the bottom needs to drop or something bad needs to happen next, right? Indeed! And, that’s exactly what happened. One day, I arrived home from work and right away noticed that my wife had a very distressed look on her face. “What’s wrong, honey?” I asked. She moved towards me a little closer and handed me a piece of paper and said, “I have no idea what this is about. I don’t understand why we are being billed for Medicare!” I looked at the paper. Sure enough, a bill from Medicare for ONE QUARTER and it was for several hundred dollars!?! WHAT?! SINCE WHEN!?
I knew premiums for Medicare were going to be in the picture, but WE HAD NO IDEA WE HAD TO PAY THIS MUCH FOR MEDICARE WHEN RETIRED! DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS!? SURPRISE!! OH YEAH, BABY! Just like with the insurance companies: “Here’s your share!” DAMN!! RIGHT?!
So, as it turns out, yes, you have to pay premiums for Medicare. Even really poor people pay a little something. Only folks completely on Medicaid, which is aid for people who will not or cannot work for all kinds of reasons like infirmity, missing limbs, insanity, chronic rage, being elderly, having dementia, loss of memory and other life situations or conditions you wouldn’t want, get a free ride. The rest of us all have to pay based on our household income, and it’s not inexpensive, and it’s not easy to compute how much you’re going to have to shell out either. Hmmmm . . . by design?
So, if you were making a good living before retiring and expect to maintain a fairly decent one in retirement too, expect to pay handsomely for Medicare.
To Recap:
1. You MUST sign up for Medicare 3 months before turning 65 or pay a big (10%) penalty premium on top of the normal premium if you don’t sign up, but then later decide to do so.
2. Medicare is scaled so premiums are based on your household income, not individual and it’s all off of the last two years tax returns.
3. There are many surprises in store for the heartiest of us, including discovering co-payments and deductibles around hospitalizations and many procedures, as well as a plethora of things that any fun loving senior is likely to need or want to use or be seen about.
4. These “donut holes” of non-payment, non-coverage, co-payments, and deductibles force most to buy the seemingly cheap add-on, Medi-gap or supplemental insurance in addition to Medicare.
5. Many familial situations go unaddressed or are outdated regarding living and financial arrangements that were not largely in existence when many of the rules around medicare were initially formulated. How about a married couple that file taxes jointly, but keep their money separate, but the retired spouse who made the least is now having to pay a lot more for medicare, because her and her husbands incomes are combined for tax filing purposes. Sure, they could file separately, but the government has made sure that the penalties for filing separately are so stiff, one is better off paying the higher medicare premium! It’s maddening.
Simply looking at the list, it appears that, at least when it comes to Medicare, the government is definitely engaging in strong-arm tactics similar to and not unlike the Mafia in New Jersey. “You Must,” and stiff lifetime “Penalty,” are interesting choices of words, especially when combined with a website and publications that are confusing and EVERYTHING points to another page or link and you end up clicking around in circles.
It’s so odd how organized the Medicare.gov website appears to be, but one quickly discovers that, it too, is just another pit that initially sucks you in with a simple click on a straight forward, seemingly innocuous link, only to have to scan a whole bunch of additional choices, and eventually you get to click your way to the IRS part of this hybrid monster, the charts, the income qualification info, the rules, the exceptions to those rules, and the rules regarding the exceptions to those rules! It’s endless. I hate it with a passion, the same way I hate almost every single federal website I’ve been to. They all look, sound, and confuse the same way. A giant mammalian sucking action on the taxpayers of America.
Seems at every turn, the Federal Government just cannot stop itself from growing bigger and more complex with whole volumes of rules about every little thing. No wonder costs keep rising. Too many agencies and fluff overseeing more fluff and their fluffy sub-agencies. Do we need the government at all?, of course we do FOR SURE, but my God! Why can’t the foundation of these agencies, which are supposed to be by us, for us, and about us, be based on simplifying whenever possible, and for minimizing confusion, speaking in plain English, and reducing wasted time and money?!
I’ve written about the need for single payer healthcare in the U.S. before. Every year, we rinse and repeat and continue doing so many things the same old stupid way and all we do is waste resources in the process. So, single payer healthcare, one agency, one card for all, NO COPAYMENTS, NO DEDUCTIBLE, NO PAPER SHUFFLE, NO BILLING DEPARTMENTS, NO PREMIUMS, NO GOTCHAS!
No retiree wants or should have to deal with all the bureaucratic bullshit handed out by the federal government over MONEY after working for 30-60 years and is now just looking forward to finally having some simple enjoyment and the time to do what one wants for a change! Retirees DO NOT want to count beans and reconcile with the government on a quarterly basis! Medicare is just the beginning of what is needed, which is single payer health care. The current way medicare is delivered is just another dinosaur that needs to be burned at the stake and composted into something so much better and less expensive.
Here is what I want to see Social Security and Medicare become in the very near future:
- Full social security would apply to anyone who works full time in the United States of America for at least 30 years, paying taxes along the way. The retiree is then paid a lump sum based on the national average cost of living including housing, groceries, utilities, transportation–the staples of living–divided by 12. Simple.
- Once retired, they should have fully paid medical everything at any level and for any issue. One card for ID, never any money or paper statements and the like.
- If a retiree needs more care, or full time care, it is included.
- If a retiree wants to go to university, it’s free.
- If a retiree wants to learn how to do something new vocationally and meets the physical and mental criteria, then the classes are paid for.
- Private investing is still allowed, as are private pension plans.
- Those who work less time will have the fewest choices about anything, but what ever the reason(s) clean, safe public housing and basic sustenance will be provided to all, because we are all human beings.
All the smoke and mirrors, publications XYZ, dos and don’ts, lists of exceptions and gotchas just simply vanish and become meaningless because now the new rules can be listed on less than a single page.
The only real reason why Americans don’t have a proper social backdrop and universal healthcare like virtually every other country: greed and the profit involved when you make medicine a for profit enterprise. If you take a good, hard, realistic look at the issue, you’ll soon realize that, ONCE AGAIN, there are no real issues other than greed, profit, and the idea in so many people’s heads that somehow their personal money is going to pay for some slacker sitting on a stoop smoking cigarettes and weed, while talking on a smartphone and scratching lotto tickets. It’s always how people get when money is being spent on, and for other people with the rest of us worried that somehow our money is going to someone else less deserving of it and that didn’t earn it! Right?
And, something else that needs to be cleared up while I’m on this topic: how these things are funded. Social Security and Medicare are not our personal retirement and medical savings accounts. In fact, our bi-weekly payroll taxes are what funds the current recipients of both programs in real time. These agencies use a formula that bases your benefit off of variables such as your age, your total contributions and the like, and they put all the needed info into a formula and out pops how much someone will receive in the case of social security, and how much it will cost you in the case of medicare. When it’s your turn, the current workers of America who are paying payroll taxes are now paying your social security checks, just as your work taxes pay or have paid into the system in the same way.
SIMPLIFY THE SYSTEM
99% of us work very hard all of our lives. In the end, we feel mixed as hell because so many things are all swirling at once, like giving up all of that “busy-ness” that we cursed about for decades and feeling unneeded or irrelevant-“out to pasture.” We quite often have known several jobs and many different bosses and coworkers over the decades too. We’ve learned an enormous amount about virtually everything, and contributed so much during the course of our working lives that it’s extremely difficult to quantify. We are what made the economy what it was while we worked, and much of what we created will live on for decades, perhaps even centuries.
Our current system no longer works, and the proof is in how much the cost is to run it versus how well it is meeting the needs of retirees. Like so many things, this is just another elephant that has been quietly sitting in the corner eating peanuts watching life go by getting fatter and fatter as time has gone on with little to no oversight. This kind of waste has got to stop once and for all. We’re all collectively paying for it in some taxing way, shape, or form for all of our adult lives and the least we could do on our way out is kick this bastard in the ass hard enough to leave a better legacy for future generations.
SIMPLIFY THE WHOLE THING BECAUSE IT IS SIMPLE. This is all about everyone collectively looking out for everyone else, and it’s high time the United States of America got off of its high horse and start putting its money where its mouth is too. Maybe once upon a time, like when I was a kid, the United Stated reigned supreme, but no longer. We are WAY BEHIND many other countries for mortality, infant mortality, and technology, as well as climate change initiatives. We cannot just spew out to the world that we are the greatest when we are not. We have to walk the walk, not just offer up the talk. The simple benefits outlined above for retirees are the building blocks, along with a four day work week for those still working, and 32 hours being the norm as full time, with the same annual salary.
These are ideas that can and should happen. They are only a decision away from being real. And, why not? We all believe that it’s all too big for us to do anything about, but it just isn’t so. It’s only so, because we choose to buy into it. Let’s get what we want and what we deserve. It’s a win-win for all in the arena. Promote these ideas, hold them dear, for what you hold in your mind and heart with conviction eventually has no choice but manifestation into reality.
Super rich (I know you all feel so picked on these days don’t you), I’m looking at you. Yes, we’re on to you INTIMATELY for the first time ever thanks to public information laws and the internet. Do I need to finish here? PAY YOUR FAIR SHARE! One way or another higher taxes are coming to get you, and guess what? You’ll still be filthy rich!