What’s Wrong with This Picture?

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart

 

My wife and I each paid into Social Security for more than 40 years. When we became eligible for Medicare, we would be required to pay about 150 dollars per month for part “B,” each, and that didn’t cover everything we might need including vision care and prescription medicine.

People half our age are now receiving comprehensive healthcare under the Affordable Care Act, “or Obamacare,” for as little as 20-30 dollars per month without contributing any additional funds to Medicare.

What’s wrong with this picture?

With a fixed income from Social Security of about $3,000 a month, we make too much money to qualify for assistance from any agency. Our food bill has increased by more than 30 percent. Gas and electric bills have increased by more than 27 percent. We cannot afford Medicare part “B” and continue to pay our monthly bills, all necessities. We do not have food delivered or go to restaurants. All of our money helps us maintain a meager lifestyle.

We’re not complaining, but we do believe that our government should make older and infirmed Americans priority number one. Instead we spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year planning for another war. We send hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign nations for various reasons. Meanwhile, we can barely exist in the most expensive nation in the world.

Politicians claim that the United States is both “the greatest country in the world,” and “the richest country in the world.” Neither is true. The truth is, America ranks last in quality of life among all developed nations. The fact that our nation remains the most racist and bigoted in the free world prevents us from being a great nation. Only five percent of our nation’s people live in “the richest country in the world. One-half of all Americans live below the poverty line, or in the low-income level, struggling to survive.

America should join the rest of the world and have universal healthcare covering every citizen. We do not need several systems which are too costly and unaffordable for most. This should be right, not a privilege for the few.

I once claimed to be proud that I was an American. Considering the atmosphere in our nation today, combined with a dysfunctional government which serves itself and not all 330 million people, I have no loyalty to this nation as long as we continue to maintain the worst and most corrupt government in the world.

Op-ed by James Turnage

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