Hey, do any of you know anybody who wants or needs to retire but is hanging onto a job for health insurance coverage because once they retire, all they will have is COBRA, and they don't call it COBRA for nuthin'?

Do any of you know anybody who owns a small business or a practice of some sort, you know, The American Dream, but who finds that once they decide to sell it and retire, they will have no access to a plan where they can BUY decent coverage at a reasonable cost?

Do any of you know anybody who has worked for a government entity within a state or local where retiree health plans used to cover spouses at a reasonable cost? But now ready to live the dream, said potential retiree finds that the job must continue because the cost of spousal coverage has become prohibitive. So the only real choice is to just keep on working and slouching toward Medicare?

Does anybody know anybody with a pre-existing condition that makes it darned near impossible to find any decent private plan that will cover them when they retire if their employer, like so many, drops retiree coverage? No matter what the retiree thought was supposed to happen.

Does anybody know anybody who retired, good health, found a plan, got sick, and found rates raised to crush them?

Does anybody know anybody who one day found that their health insurance company, through their employer, was going public? An IPO. Offering the covered cash or stock. Those who took the stock were pretty happy. The CEO was happier. Rolling around in more and more millions while claims were too often turned down and premiums skyrocketed. All those stockholders owning a piece of every body insured by the company. (And yes I meant to put that space between every and body.) Stockholders must be kept happy you know.

Probably everybody knows somebody who is trying to sell a house so they can move to their retirement dream but find that it's not happening, (Yet another lift of Congress' hindleg on the American people. I digress.) But I think more of you than realize it know somebody who cannot move to their retirement dream because even though they could come right in, slap down cash for a house, and still have a few bucks left, because they did it all right, they find that they cannot access a decent affordable healthcare plan for early retirees.

Does anybody know anybody who is the spouse of a retiree from a big company who is now covered but who lies awake nights wondering what will happen to that coverage if something happens to the spouse? COBRA. Yep, it's a COBRA all right. Better than nothing. Really expensive. And it runs out.

Does anybody know anybody who remembers having to pay for prescriptions up front, saving the receipts in a shoebox, and then mailing them in for reimbursement? And did that person find that once the drug card and co-pay concept hit, it was just soooo much easier?

And does anybody know anybody at all who figured out long ago that drug cards were just like that old Trojan Horse? Roll that baby right in here. Hey, this is great. Let's celebrate. We do not have to worry about those pesky mail ins anymore. And inside that drug card, there hid the enemy. Big Pharma could raise prices and raise prices without anybody even noticing. Too busy celebrating the convenience of the drug card. (And yeah, I get pipelines.)

Does anybody know anybody with a young doctor in the family? In practice for only a couple of years. Already wondering why.

There is so much to this issue that I could type all night. Even though I swore I would chew my fingers to bloody stumps before trying to even get into this again.

I tend to focus on what happens to people in our age group. The people who thought they had it all planned. All figured out. Who did it right. According to the American Dream.

And you might also be surprised to know that for now, we have it covered. But I also know that this is not just about me. It is about a huge economic picture.

But before I am dismissed or worse, accused of being some commie pinko old broad, let me tell you that I am not talking about socialized medicine. And I have never voted for a Democrat candidate in my whole long voting life. (yet) And that I hate taxes. But what I hate worse is the ignoring of this huge problem that will go on to hamstring our economy if not addressed.

And before I leave, I really do have an offering of what seems to be a relatively easy to figure out solution for the early retirees at least. An early Medicare BUY IN. Did you see that? I said BUY IN. At the beginning of this thread SteveZ brings up pools and catastrophic coverage. Big, big pools and catastophic coverage is what those who did it the old Amercan Way really need. Not to be shut out at the point of no return.

And that old "No Socialized Medicine!" is nothing more than a battle cry guaranteed to whip up a knee-jerk block vote while offering no solutions. Off the hook. And on to power. (I know I said that somewhere else on the board, but I wanted to say it here, too.)

I have a favorite quote that I have used on this board before when I ranted about the bad lending practices that are hurting so many. I do not know who said this, but I wish I had. "Unrestrained greed is not only bad morals, it's bad economics."

Boomer

Whew! Well, I don't know if anybody read it, but I do know I feel much better.