The End of Medicare

We were given the three choices: low to no risk; middle; aggressive. They picked the companies where our money "worked for us."

Maybe your money had a real good union.

Mine were all in Vanguard Funds - they are the low cost provider and lots of companies use them. All company 401K plans involve a small set of preselected options for those who don't want to think about it, but all also allow you to transfer funds to any of the hundreds of open funds operated by the fund manager (i.e. Vanguard, Fidelity, Merril Lynch, etc.). I simply tried to balance my contributions over funds involving bonds, income stocks, growth stocks, a few real estate funds and some international indices. I always contributed the max allowed (including the "catch up" allowance allowed for folks over 50) and even some post tax money if the program allowed that (some don't).

Once it left our hands it made a union with their money. I only kept mine going because the company I work for added matching money for us.

That's a good reason. So is the tax deferral. Now, I'm sneaking out as much as I can without having to pay taxes on it. Much better than waiting for a crisis that needed so much cash that it became taxable.

If the program that I was with could be better manipulated, I did not realize it. The point is, how many other people would be the same way with SS vouchers and end with little?

If you understood me to be in opposition to ss, you have misread something.

Just explaining my position. I didn't think we were arguing.

In my "neck of the woods", the docs who are in the Advantage programs were not your top students at great medical schools. So if you don't mind being treated by someone who was in the lowest quarter at the University of Slobovia...........................

George and Cyclo misquote me regarding how much more costly is Advantage as compared to traditional Medicare. I didn't say it was 50 percent more expensive. I said it was "up to 50 percent" more expensive, which is a fact. See: http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/vp_medicare_advantage/

Further, as I stated before, the care under Advantage is inferior despite its higher cost. It may or may not be true that, in some areas, it is difficult to find physicians who will accept Medicare. I understand this is not a problem in most urban areas.

Ah. Sort of like the VA.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me why insurers would even be interested in insuring old folks in the first place, voucher or no. IIRC, the entire reason Medicare was enacted was that insurers were NOT in fact interested in this and it was a real problem.

Cycloptichorn

Ask that question if and when you become one of those 'old folks'.

Do you seriously believe the situation is or will be any different under the drastically reduced rates paid by Medicare? At least Advantage provided some incentives for achieving beneficial medical outcomes as opposed to merely billing for often unnecessary individual services - a source of a large fraction od the widespread Mediacre fraud that has been uncovered in the last few years..

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