More Than 50% of Retirees Chose Medicare Advantage
It’s Going to be Easy for Republicans to Privatize Medicare
I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to realize that you can’t truly help people — not really. Short of providing a hot meal, clean water, and a warm bed, there’s not much you can do to guarantee quality of life for most individuals. We seem determined to take a dump in our own backyards.
Humans are their own worst enemies.
I remember in 2016 when the Democrats decided to try and rebuild their party right in the middle of an election. That was the first year that I heard a loud and clear message about universal health care from a significant number of Americans. We are notoriously the only Western country that has refused to create a health care system that is affordable for its citizens. The NHS was established in 1948, so pushing for universal health care at this late date isn’t exactly a progressive idea. However, Americans just weren’t ready.
They need to see the health care system implode first.
And apparently, they’re still not ready, which is par for the course. Nope! Instead, they put a party in power that isn’t remotely interested in affordable health care for all, but instead wants to privatize our traditional Medicare.
To make matters even worse, 56% of seniors are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, not traditional Medicare.
Yep! A private insurance company is now catering to the majority of senior citizens. I mean, what the hell? Apparently, 56% of the elderly are willing to give the private insurance companies a helping hand. Some don’t even realize that Medicare Advantage isn’t Medicare. In fact, it’s unfair that the name was ever allowed; it’s misrepresentation at the highest order. So many have been utterly tricked by America’s number one grifters — big money makers, the only people who truly matter in America.
Then, there are those who say they want universal health care like the rest of the Western world, but they still choose Medicare Advantage.
Why? Money. They fell for the lower costs for now. But anyone with a lick of sense knows that insurance companies can change things at the drop of a hat, including their prices. Look at what’s happening to car and homeowner insurance right now. It’s becoming unaffordable and covers less.
You can’t tell me that Medicare Advantage is going to be the only insurance company in the entire United States that refuses to change the rules.
Nope! Once they get the lion’s share of customers — weakening traditional Medicare until it dies an orchestrated and preplanned death — they’ll turn everything upside down, and not in favor of grandma and grandpa. And you know what they say?
What will be, will be.
That’s right. I’m tired of hoping that Americans will understand how to establish a sustainable life in a country that only cares about one thing — money. So what will be, will be. And I seriously mean that.
It’s frustrating to bang your head against a brick wall day after day, year after year, with no results. Americans are stubborn and uninformed, over-propagandized, and selfish. Too many will cut their noses off to spite their faces.
In other words, we are the problem.
Of course, the 1% have a lot to answer for, but frankly, those on the flip side of the coin cause as many, if not more, of their own problems than a rich man sitting in a big house on top of a hill in a big city will ever do.
The average person is so easily persuaded to vote against their own best interests that it blows my mind.
Women voting against their own hard-earned rights. Workers refusing to support their unions. Men getting sucked into needless wars. Whole neighborhoods getting poisoned by environmental destruction yet voting to get rid of regulations.
We will poison our children before we see the light.
What the average person doesn’t seem to get is that unification is the ONLY power we have. We don’t have the money the rich have. We don’t have the clout they have. We don’t travel in the same circles of influence. All we have is numbers. We outnumber them. They seem to know that we outnumber them and do anything they can to divide us.
But we don’t get it.
We’re so easily divided and confused that we simply give away the only power we have. We refuse to unify. Even if it kills us. Even if it kills our children. Even if we end up losing the things our ancestors fought so hard to gain.
Regression happens at a much faster pace than progress.
Sadly, humans seem to do the one step forward, two steps back dance without fail. It’s a phenomenon that I’ll never understand, but it certainly explains why progress is so damn slow. We should be miles ahead of where we are now. Miles. Our technological advancement alone would make one think that social progress is also possible.
But it’s not!
We still can’t get along. We’re selfish. We’re emotional rather than logical. We’re easily deceived. We lose focus quickly. Often, we’re lazy, and most of all, we seem to long for a leader who promises to make everything okay, letting us completely off the hook. It’s going to be pretty easy to get rid of traditional Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, SSI — all the programs that have raised people out of poverty and ushered us into a modern lifestyle that has never been experienced before. There was so much more that we needed to do, but we’ve decided to dance instead.
We’re taking two giant steps back, and nobody will be able to rescue us from ourselves.
Teresa is an author and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
