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No Investment? No Return
By GENE SCALF, For The Bulletin
Today, I am 77 years old. When I was 16, I started working for the railroad in Cincinnati, Ohio. From that time on, every paycheck I ever got had money taken out of it for Social Security, an "old age benefit plan" mandated by the government.
For the next 49 years, I contributed to this retirement plan every time I got paid. In 1997, at the age of 65, I received my first Social Security benefit check, a little over $400 if memory serves me right. It wasn't enough to live on, but it sure did come in handy. I've always looked at these checks as a return on what I've put into the retirement system for nearly five decades. I do not look at them as "handouts" from the government because they aren't. My monthly check is a return on investment (ROI) from the Social Security Old Age Benefit Plans that I've been investing in for years.
In 1954, the Medicare Health Insurance – different from Social Security – was created by President Lyndon Johnson. This was not a free-bee either. Just like Social Security, Medicare is financed by payroll deductions imposed by the government. Starting in 1954, I contributed up to 6 percent of every paycheck into this fund, with my employer matching my contribution toward this health insurance.
All those years of paying 2 to 6 percent of my earnings made Medicare available to me today. Unfortunately, Medicare did not keep up with inflation and, before long, the medical field would not accept Medicare as full payment for most treatments. I had to incur another monthly expense in the form of supplemental insurance to cover what Medicare didn't pay. Currently I am paying $275 per month to Blue Cross Insurance to pay what Medicare cannot cover.
But my point is that Medicare is not provided as a free gift from the government. In fact, it's not provided by our government at all. Medicare is provided by people like me who have been paying premiums into the system since 1954. Look at your pay-stub. You've been paying into the same systems.
I have poured my life into working – and making payments into federally-mandated retirement and health care plans – in order to live well in my old age. Every other citizen of the U.S. has done the same. We have all put time and money into the system in order to enjoy our retirement years.
And, now, President Obama wants to funnel millions of people who are citizens of other countries into the medical support systems of the United States. He claims this is not his intention, but the truth is that there are currently no provisions in his "Obamacare" to prevent illegals from flooding the system. Even now, illegal immigrants flood our emergency rooms, causing other patients to pay higher fees in order to cover the added expenses.
If you do the math, you know this cannot work. Illegal immigrants have contributed virtually nothing into the health care system, so whose money will be used to pay for their benefits? Yours and mine. Indeed, the only way to add non-contributing beneficiaries into the program is to collect even more money from legally employed taxpayers like you and me. Regardless of what Mr. Obama claims, his plan is a disaster. You don't walk into an ongoing poker game where players have already put their money into the pot and expect to play in the game.
It is downright cruel for Mr. Obama to come in like a destructive tornado and disrupt so many American citizens' lives with his liberal socialist philosophy. This is not just an "old age" problem. If young people do not step up to the plate and begin shouldering the responsibility of keeping our country intact, they will be in worse shape than we are when they get older ... IF there even is still a country.
The average American is already paying better than 70 percent of their income to some form of imposed taxes: Federal, state, county, city and sales tax plus the many double taxations that are hidden inside our utility bills, gasoline prices, phone bills and more. Everything you and I earn, buy or sell has some form of hidden taxes or government fees. We are already being taxed to death – and Mr. Obama's "generous" healthcare agenda will add even more tax burden to us all.
There is an old country riddle: "If you had all the feathers you could carry, could you carry just one more?"
The answer, of course, is no.
For the next 49 years, I contributed to this retirement plan every time I got paid. In 1997, at the age of 65, I received my first Social Security benefit check, a little over $400 if memory serves me right. It wasn't enough to live on, but it sure did come in handy. I've always looked at these checks as a return on what I've put into the retirement system for nearly five decades. I do not look at them as "handouts" from the government because they aren't. My monthly check is a return on investment (ROI) from the Social Security Old Age Benefit Plans that I've been investing in for years.
In 1954, the Medicare Health Insurance – different from Social Security – was created by President Lyndon Johnson. This was not a free-bee either. Just like Social Security, Medicare is financed by payroll deductions imposed by the government. Starting in 1954, I contributed up to 6 percent of every paycheck into this fund, with my employer matching my contribution toward this health insurance.
All those years of paying 2 to 6 percent of my earnings made Medicare available to me today. Unfortunately, Medicare did not keep up with inflation and, before long, the medical field would not accept Medicare as full payment for most treatments. I had to incur another monthly expense in the form of supplemental insurance to cover what Medicare didn't pay. Currently I am paying $275 per month to Blue Cross Insurance to pay what Medicare cannot cover.
But my point is that Medicare is not provided as a free gift from the government. In fact, it's not provided by our government at all. Medicare is provided by people like me who have been paying premiums into the system since 1954. Look at your pay-stub. You've been paying into the same systems.
I have poured my life into working – and making payments into federally-mandated retirement and health care plans – in order to live well in my old age. Every other citizen of the U.S. has done the same. We have all put time and money into the system in order to enjoy our retirement years.
And, now, President Obama wants to funnel millions of people who are citizens of other countries into the medical support systems of the United States. He claims this is not his intention, but the truth is that there are currently no provisions in his "Obamacare" to prevent illegals from flooding the system. Even now, illegal immigrants flood our emergency rooms, causing other patients to pay higher fees in order to cover the added expenses.
If you do the math, you know this cannot work. Illegal immigrants have contributed virtually nothing into the health care system, so whose money will be used to pay for their benefits? Yours and mine. Indeed, the only way to add non-contributing beneficiaries into the program is to collect even more money from legally employed taxpayers like you and me. Regardless of what Mr. Obama claims, his plan is a disaster. You don't walk into an ongoing poker game where players have already put their money into the pot and expect to play in the game.
It is downright cruel for Mr. Obama to come in like a destructive tornado and disrupt so many American citizens' lives with his liberal socialist philosophy. This is not just an "old age" problem. If young people do not step up to the plate and begin shouldering the responsibility of keeping our country intact, they will be in worse shape than we are when they get older ... IF there even is still a country.
The average American is already paying better than 70 percent of their income to some form of imposed taxes: Federal, state, county, city and sales tax plus the many double taxations that are hidden inside our utility bills, gasoline prices, phone bills and more. Everything you and I earn, buy or sell has some form of hidden taxes or government fees. We are already being taxed to death – and Mr. Obama's "generous" healthcare agenda will add even more tax burden to us all.
There is an old country riddle: "If you had all the feathers you could carry, could you carry just one more?"
The answer, of course, is no.
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