And vitamins don't count as medicine!

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Last edited by Willard on 11 Jan 2010, 10:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I work with insurance members with Medicare . I understand Willard's angst. However, please understand Medicare is now working under the laws the Congress of 2003 and 2005 that designed Medicare part D (pharmacy benefits) and the Medicare replacement policies.
Nothing of the current Health Care discussion in Congress and the Senate in 2009 has been ratified and placed into law and probably won't become valid law until 2013.

When people get disability or otherwise qualify for Medicare, they get it. Poof. It takes the onus off the State or Federal for providing for your health care. The only way you can get it rescinded is to be incarcerated. Then the State or Federal has to take care of your health care.

don't you get any foodstamps?

not trying to be snotty. i don't even have disability, and will prolly be on the streets myself till i get stuff going on later.

but i'm just surprised that your income is that low and no foodstamps at all? but then, i don't actually know what you get or what your costs are.

and i agree, it's dumb to have this done in that way. i'd rather have a roof than a doctor visit any day. but really, what's the deal about stamps (card, i guess) for food for you?

SHOOT, you stole my thunder!! !! ! Once the new "plan" passes, taxpayers get to pay starting THAT year! The cuts to programs, such as medicare, start THAT year! The "benefits" don't start getting phased in until 2013. That was in ALL the bills I saw or heard about. Supposedly, we don't see the FULL "benefits" until perhaps 2016 or LATER. Of course, there is a LOT there that the democrats have NOT said, but it IS in the bills. There is even some stuff NOBODY talked about, but it is in the bills. This bill is not really A bill but rather a bill with a set of instructions talking about changes to MANY other bills, so I don't know if ANYONE has really read the many THOUSANDS(it is FAR more than the 2000 quoted) of pages that would have to be read to see what will actually change.

So don't get your hopes up. Several people have said, for example, that the PPOs setup several years ago for medicare will be eradicated.

BTW don't blame ME. I was against this from the BEGINNING. To "cover" everyone else, they are going to steal from all the tax payers. OBVIOUSLY they figure that, since they "pay" you, that it is OK to steal from YOU also. Just wait until the bill passes. The premium will go UP and the benefits will DROP! HOPEFULLY, they will leave YOU alone with reagrd to the higher premium, since you aren't getting THAT much, and hopefully you are on STRAIGHT medicare and don't need many services, so MAYBE you won't notice the changes.

Yeah, if you're on disability, you should definitely be eligible for food stamps. You may not get a whole lot, but it should be enough that if you are very careful about how you buy your food you can eat enough to fill your needs.

Plus, unlike disability income, food stamps do not have a hugely long approval process. In my state, the very most you'd wait is generally about a month, and some people can even get them expedited to within a week. You should also be checking out local food pantry or "emergency food assistance program", which is generally available even for people above the poverty line who are low on money and out of food. Most such places give you about a week's worth of groceries, about once a month. Churches and other charitable organizations often have food pantries as well. You should also try to find out if your area allows assistance with winter heating costs; even if you can't get that, most utility companies have programs where you pay less in the winter and more in the summer so you don't get hit with bills you can't pay and late fees when you don't pay them.

Of course here in the UK we've had compulsory National Insurance since the 1940s.....it's what the majority of people seem to want and I've got no problem with the principle. As far as I know, nobody over here has to contribute unless they're waged - they don't deduct anything from benefits. Even if you're completely out of the system and have never paid a bean, your healthcare is still free, though I think they've changed that for failed asylum seekers.

I don't know how fair the contributions are at the low end......personally I think that the tax threshold should be the same as the amount of income a citizen needs for the basics, whereas they always set them rather lower than that, so you can be working long, hard hours in a low-paid job yet still be paying tax.

I suspect what they've gone and done with the new US system is to pitch the threshold way too low, to appease the vested interests who don't want universal healthcare to happen. I don't think they're idiots - just selfish con men. They've pitched it so that you seem to be getting a UK-style health service for all, but the devil in the detail is that people who are really struggling are having to foot the bill.

It sounds from your other comments as if the gov over there is much like ours - they promise us a better tomorrow but most of what they do seems designed to cut our standard of living - hence the export of jobs and their replacement with lower-paid ones. As for benefits, they don't deduct healthcare insurance from those, they just cut the benefit directly, and make it more and more difficult to qualify for it at all. It's quite irrational - they fall over each other to declare how green they are, but they deny benefit to jobseekers who insist on maintaining a low carbon footprint by working locally.

HEY, *I* like the idea also, but this is the US. I know how they "do" this stuff. BELIEVE ME, it is not NEARLY the same thing. I wish more people would actually read the bills.

And NEBRASKA is now the ONLY state that won't have to pay for medicaid. They will STILL pay for medicare, and the other 49 states have to pay for nebraskas medicaid. It hasn't passed yet, and attorneys general are already suing them.



AGAIN, I AGREE! Until recently, I should not have had to pay ANY tax. My MOTHER(on social security) shouldn't have to pay tax. WILLARD shouldn't have to pay tax! WHY is the government paying money they EXPECT you to pay back EVEN when you need to have food and rent subsidized? I had to pay taxes, and they have to pay. My mother, and probably willard, is even FORBIDDEN to work!! !! !! ! If she DARES work, they cut the social security SHE paid into! She has to make a LOT before new earnings will offset anything. It SOUNDS like I am making this up, but I am not.



What we have said about social security is the plan as it was even before the universal health care bill was written. It hasn't changed yet.



Well, at least you get something.

I can well believe it. We get exactly the same problem over here. Unfortunately, the politicians' preferred method of dealing with it is to reduce the benefits. What I'd like to see is benefits ringfenced so they always covered the basics, from cradle to grave, and a law saying that a job wasn't a job unless it paid well enough (after all stoppages and job-related expenses) to provide a bit more for life's little luxuries. But then I always did base my political judgements on morality rather than economics, and in a relatively free market I suppose I'd wreck everything if I ever got my way. That's one of the reasons I'd like to see some experimenting with a command economy - I'm sure that with a free market we'll always have this built-in contradiction between morality and "realpolitik" which will scupper any attempt to deliver social security.