It Appears that our Government and Corporate America are Colluding to Kill Older Americans
Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart
Greedflation, increases in Medicare, and insufficient
increases in Social Security prove that our government and corporate America
are colluding to kill older Americans as quickly as possible.
My wife and I have one income: our Social Security. We
struggled as millions of others do. In 2019 we were surviving, and that is the
only accurate term I could use. Today our food bill has increased by about 35
percent. Our gas and electric bill increased 37 percent. Gasoline prices have
risen by more than 40 percent. Medicare has risen by about 20 percent. I have
found ways to reduce our automobile and homeowner’s insurance, but every other
necessary expenditure has increased.
The 8.5 percent increase in our Social Security checks we
began receiving in January of this year fail to compensate for the increase in
the cost of necessities. Greedflation, a planned increase in commodities, and a
minimal increase in Social Security in 2024 will endanger our very existence.
We cannot afford Medicare part B. We can only go to a doctor
if it is an emergency. We pay for “services” from our own bank account.
Read this disturbing headline from Yahoo:
‘Unconscionable’: Baby boomers are becoming homeless at a
rate ‘not seen since the Great Depression.’
The tens of millions of Americans who survive on a fixed
income have no other resources. We cannot work an extra day and overtime is not
an option.
Sadly, the United States is the only developed nation where the
elderly face such a huge problem. I am
a 77-year-old man, and my wife is 73. Our country, by its actions over the last
four decades, prove that we are “collateral damage” to ensure that the lives of
the super-rich continue to be priority number one. America has not been the
nation of our Founding Fathers for decades. It has become a business where
money is its only true god.
In nearly every
other nation in the world elders are considered valuable and the young are taught
to revere them for their wisdom and life experience. This is not true in
America. We tear down historical buildings and other hundred-year-old edifices
to our past and build new, often garish, structures. We plan and encourage the
deaths of our oldest people hoping to inherit whatever they accomplished in
their lives. We have much to learn from immigrants who do not become “Americanized.”
The greatest cause
for homelessness in the United States is the outrageous and unforgivable cost of
medical care. For example, when I was born in 1946, the cost of a single night’s
stay in a hospital averaged $31.00. In 2023 the average per day is nearly
double the amount of the average monthly Social Security check: $2883.00.
If I become
seriously ill, I will simply have to die rather than leave my wife in debt
after my demise.
Oh well, that’s the
cost of living in what politicians call “the greatest country in the world.” I
wonder where that is.
Op-ed by James
Turnage
Sources: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unconscionable-baby-boomers-becoming-homeless-103000310.html
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