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by ProllyInfamous 893 days ago
>Medicare -- don't ask.

Let's take it one sub-section at a time, starting with Part D:

The most insane "free give away" of younger tax-payer money, which the first decade of beneficiaries effectively contributed <10% of received benefit (prescription drug subsidization, but only if you're retired/disabled).

I am ALL FOR SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE SOLUTION — I dropped out of a US medical school over a decade ago (realizing the system then was broken, most-obvious-then with the passage of medical student / resident ~80hr/week MAX scheduling (ha ha ha)). Obamacare was doomed before it even passed, and I personally paid the IRS "fine" for the few years required.

Your wall of text is absolutely spot-on, breath-taking!, and yet I recommend to many to embellish their lives in facts, starting with the greatest book [1] on Modern US Retireeism's Upper Crust [certainly there are numerous more impoverished Boomers]; those that did from the "I got Mine!" Generation absolutely are detached from the reality of modern US Decline [opportunies aren't there, folks, for massive segments of population].

Some common examples I see in my part-time philanthropy work (medical focused, for underserved populations within US):

Rich, Well.Meaning Donor: "Yes, but I'd rather donate mother `internationally` because there is SO MUCH OPPORTUNITY FOR US CITIZENs to work and they `just aren't` working."

Donor coordinator (not wealhty; work is matching tax-writeoffs with approved local charities): "That is JUST NOT THE CASE, Friend [2]. I am happy to discuss the complexities of any of a variety of hindrances which keep the majority of Americans impoverished, renting, and unable to develop their own Generational Wealth — pick any topic"

Rich Phil./Legal Tax Avoider: "Why doesn't anybody want to be a non-traveling nurse anymore?!" [==contract nurses that rotate positions and are very. well. paid |VS| full-time staff nurse]

D.C: "Because working staff at a hospital doesn't pay very well, for all the emotional and physical BS that nurses have to deal with -- and the hospital gets gutted by some MBA/JD that works quickly to make each Fiscal Quarter more profitable, to the ultimate doom of the healthcare of patients and well-being of employees. By being short-term traveling contract, only, the MBA/JDs [at first] appear to be saving money [i.e. more shareholder value!] until ultimately the cost of mismanagement/lawsuits from overworked staff and misunderstood wards ends up destroying the entire healthcare system."

Rich Donor, less gratuitously: "???" "But USA has `best healthcare in the world!` ... `wait times` ... `yada` ..."

Me: "...if you can AFFORD IT."

----

[1] book "A Generation of Sociopaths" A+

[2] e.g: RAM (Rural Access Medical?) started out as an international charity started by a US Physician... who then realized that underserved/uninsured US Citizens oftentimes face 3rd-world-like health crisis, particularly in rural Appalachia (for just one 5M+ example!).

1 comments

It's incredible the extent to which Gen X/Y/Millenials are not fighting back over being fleeced by Boomers. We’ve paid 12.4 percent of our earnings to Social Security the whole time we've worked — half taken through the “FICA” tax on our paycheck and half through the payroll tax. What is more, the Medicare tax at 3.1%.

In contrast, the Boomers entered the workforce in the late 1960s, paid only 6.5 percent of their earnings to Social Security and nothing to Medicare. For about half of their working years, the Boomers paid 10 percent or less to Social Security and less than 1.25 percent to Medicare. Only from 1990 on, when the Boomers had earned paychecks for a quarter‐ century, did they start paying 12.4 percent to Social Security and 2.9 percent to Medicare — the same percentage we Gen‑X/ Yers have paid our whole lives. Yet, Boomers are reaping the full rewards, rewards we will likely never see.

It's an absolute fucking joke and the final trick played by a generation that took solid foundation built on sweat and sacrifice, partied on them for 30 years, left their trash behind and sold what remained for parts. Every-time my conservative, gubmnt hating father lauds the wonders of Medicare and how wonderful his free healthcare is I want to kick him squarely in the balls.

Power has been consolidated. The things that could be done - protest (OWS), mild insurrection (Floyd protests), actual insurrection (Jan 6th), primary (AOC) - have been tried. It turns out that it's difficult to get anything done when the top 20% of us in terms of wealth are somewhere on the scale between "Zero backbone" and "Actively running interference for Boomers".

On the note of "selling": after certain Boomer family members were complaining about the cousin in NYC who won't renovate and get that sweet ABnBux cashflow from her brownstone, I pointed out that our family had let go of 8 figures worth of property in my lifetime (for about 6 figures in cash), and that they had no right to pin our landed gentry hopes on her. Like water off a duck's back; I don't even think they understood what I was trying to say, repeatedly misinterpreting, "It shouldn't be all on her," to mean, "We could swoop in and finance it if only she'd let us." No, I meant, "You squandered your portions of the pie Boomering around in the 90s and early 2000s; leave her be."

They just... don't listen.

Both of my best local friends are Boomers [technically; I am literally half the elder's age]. One of them literally says to me, fairly recently "there is no scientific evidence of global climate change being caused by humans." [1] He allows no further discussion/exploration [guilt much?].

My other older friend at least will read technical information on specific subjects; but his wife poopoos and moral inquisition on "fairness" (a bad word in Her house).

[1] youtube.com/watch?v=mK5TbGvvluk - a 4:49s clip by ClimateTown (Rollie Williams) citing every oil, insurance, and national agency which refutes this (spoiler alert: it's ALL OF THEM accepting global warming).