The average Fox news viewer is 65, the average talk radio listener is 67.
I do not have a cite on hand, but if you watch videos of health care protests there are a reasonably large number of geriatric protesters.
As an example, here is a guy who had a fight at a town hall meeting and got hurt. He opposed health reform. After he got hurt, he went to the hospital and medicare paid his health bills.
People over 65 collect social security and medicare. And some of them want to deny the rest of us the benefits of social programs or universal healthcare. Which is insulting.
Haha, I like it. I feel the same way about Southern states frothing about succession - leave, bitches!
I am fascinated by U.S Seniors for not (1) understanding that Medicare is, as you mentioned, an archetypal Socialist program funded by tax dollars and (2) believe that Republicans have always shown deference to Senior and elderly issues - a cursory glance of 104th - 110th Congresses (is that a word?) show otherwise.
To prevent a USSR-style collapse the US will either have to seriously cut Medicare and other entitlement spending or dramatically rein in military spending and the global basing system. Which one do you suppose we’ll choose?
We have to remember that many seniors are lonely and afraid and susceptible to the fearmongers. Seniors are being told every day that the Social Security and Medicare programs are in danger, and that’s all many of them have to keep them going. They think that giving to one segment of society means something will be taken from them. Seniors can be very unsympathetic to others but I think it’s largely because they’re scared.
How can people on this board presume to speak for seniors like it is some kind of a hive mentality. As far as being scared, in this fucked up economy there are a lot of people, of all ages, scared. But we don’t have a chance to rebound if something else goes wrong. I am 66 but am not draining the health care system. I have not been hospitalized since I had a hernia 35 years ago. That was a 1 day operation. I am sure most younger people take a bigger chunk of health care services that I do. The difference is I can not get insurance. If I could get it, it would cost a fortune. The reason Medicare exist is insurance companies will not sell insurance to a demographic that might use it. They sell insurance to people who do not need it. If something goes wrong and you need it, they will cancel you. They intend to provide as little insurance as is possible. That is a fucked up system.
I don’t know if you were referring to me or others, but no, not all seniors are the same. You are a senior and you are one of the most liberal posters here, which is great. I know other liberal seniors on this board too. Zoe is a great liberal senior.
However, it doesn’t change the fact that the median age of fox news and Hannity listener who gets a daily dose of propaganda against universal healthcare and government welfare is old enough to qualify for a government pension and single payer health care. Then they turn around and try to deny those benefits to other people.
Switching to medicare for all will save $400 billion a year in lower overhead and bulk purchases. Combine that with improved efficiency, and we could probably cut 1/3-1/4 of our health care bill.
I don’t agree that one necessarily follows the other. Are there any polls showing who supports health care reform, broken down by age? I don’t watch FOX news so I don’t know what they talk about. If they’re anything like CNN, they spend just as much time with non-news, like the balloon boy and the latest celebrity scandals.
Give seniors some credit. They aren’t going to buy everything FOX tells them. If they did, John McCain would be president.
Which is the whole reason why health “insurance” is a really, really stupid idea. Insurance works by indemnifying people against things which are not likely to happen - car accidents, death, floods, robberies and so on.
Auto or home insurance providers don’t turn a profit by denying claims - they do it because most of their customers don’t make claims.
Health insurance isn’t insurance at all - your annual checkup is extremely likely to happen, and you’re probably going to catch a cold, twist your ankle, get food poisoning, and so on.
Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. I’d put it THIS way:
Medicare is a tax on the working to pay for health care for retirees. When this country was in the boom economies of the latter half of the 20th Century, that seemed reasonable or at least tolerable. But now the working are facing inflation of medical prices to the point that productive members of society are being drained & denied health care to pay for the unproductive. This is unjust I suppose, but it’s certainly bad for productivity.
*Ergo, *either Medicare should cover everyone, & right now, during the economic depression, or it should cover no one. I will not prioritize the decrepit over the merely disadvantaged.