Spiky, If I would of had the same $110,000 that I/we put in and invested it of that same 40 years, I would have a hell of a lot more money than $330,000. The government invests, (or they used too) that money also and is supposed to grow it proportionally, exponentially more than I, one investor could have. Nobody is saying that the deserving people that worked their whole life or are disabled and pay in to the system should not be entitled to any WLS. @star0210 was talking about the generations of people that don’t work won’t work and are milking this system for everything they can get. The parasites will feed off the host until the host is dead. How is it fair and just for someone like her to work hard her whole life only to have to pay tens of thousands of dollars of her own money for her WLS, but if she was a welfare queen, she could get all the same medical care in THIS Country, all for free. What happens with socialism is that when the working people have had enough and say, “F@%k it”, I might as well become one of the 49% if I get the same benefits or even more, AND, I don’t have to work!! That 49% then becomes 59%, the system implodes and the Host dies, parasites soon thereafter…and that’s just the way it flippin is.
I understand the argument, but... (You knew that was coming, right?). Those of us who paid into Medicare did it little by little, over many years. Some of that money could have been invested...in my case...the year Medicare started because I was working then...until I stopped working. So some money would have had plenty of time to grow and other money, from the last few years wouldn't have had much time.
And then the magic starts! Timing! We bought a home in 2005 that we sold, for a little more than $100,000
LESS, in 2012. People with retirement money invested in real estate, or with Bernie Madoff, or who previously lost it all at Enron were just screwed. Investing works...in the long term. But what happens if we get old or sick at a bad time?
I have a teensy bit of money...teensy...in stocks and stuff. I wanted to see what it was like to buy stocks. My investments, as of right now, have tripled. Luckily, it was such a small investment that there would be no point cashing it in. So I have had the luxury of "sitting out" the bad times. But I know people I grew up with...just talked to the son of my mom's junior high school boyfriend!!...and he did lose almost everything with Enron. At age 53. So he's Medicare age and still working, because he never planned to retire on JUST Social Security and to get caught up, he has moved in with HIS 90 year old mother. His current retirement plan starts with, "First, Mom dies..." Others we know have lost A BUNCH of money in real estate. (I refused to cry about my $100k because we had just made $123k in the preceding bubble, so it was...in my mind...all Monopoly money anyway.). In terms of timing, we lucked out.
I don't get why people keep saying that Medicaid recipients get free wls, though. Start calling DS surgeons and ask if they take Medicaid. I think that I have heard that the VERY few who DO accept Medicaid, only do a very few patients per year. Like, count them on one hand kind of thing. Maybe that has changed, but probably not much. In fact, that has been a real problem for people who have been SO obese that they became unemployable and had nothing other than Medicaid.
I know that abuse takes place. But I also know that we see what we see, and that isn't always the whole picture. We are somehow convinced that WE are better than THEM. That we deserve what we get.
I worked with a gal whose mother SCREAMED about all of THEM getting freebies. She screamed while her daughter went to cosmetology school for free because her husband ( the daughter's dad) was a disabled vet. (That has changed, but it used to be that disabled vets' kids got free tuition.). Her husband, who worked full time in construction, got his VA disability check every month and free medical care. When her kids were grown, the screaming woman went, almost for free, to her local community college and got an AS degree in nursing. She went to work at a local hospital that has many, many federally subsidized patients. Meanwhile, my coworker's unmarried younger sister got pregnant and, living with Mom (the screaming nurse) and Dad collected what was then Aid to Families with Dependent Children. And MediCal (California's Medicaid.) And when that daughter decided to go to mostly-free public college, her child care was subsidized. And then they moved to Section 8 housing.
Now that woman is pushing 90. She gets social security and Medicare and lives with one daughter who lives off her own Social Security and her pension...from a county job. And her Medicare. These people INSIST they are political conservatives who support themselves and they are QUITE opposed to all those Welfare Queens and others who abuse the system and live off government money.
I'm tempted to send them a mirror.
My poor MIL lived in middle America and listened to the only radio shows available in her area. In the late 1990s, she bitched and moaned about how "all of us in the middle class" were getting screwed by all the "takers," and that the middle class didn't stand a chance. I had to give her the bad news... "Mom! You live in federally subsidized senior housing and your only income is Social Security of less than $4000 per year. You are not middle class.
You are one of the people you are complaining about! If you get what you're asking for, you will have to move in with one of your kids! So maybe you'd better stop asking unless you really want to move!"
But she believed what she believed...facts be damned. And too many, like my MIL and the screaming nurse, see only what they contribute and not a dime of what they collect. It is, I think, human nature.