We senior citizens are noted for two things, diminishing physical and mental abilities. We cannot do much about the former except exercise, what I call “running from Father Time.” It is loss of mental capacity that keeps the advertising industry interested in us. Senior citizens have to be the reason for the waves of robocalls that are torturing all of us. They only need a <1% response to make money, given their low overhead. Shame on us! We are the reason your phone is always ringing.

Every year, during a 45-day period known as “open enrollment” (OE), we seniors are deluged with mailings from members of AHIP, “American’s Health Insurance Providers,” trying to lure us into a program called “Medicare Advantage.” I bit, one time, but was able to escape the grips of Humana by complaining directly to Medicare about its deceitful practices. I re-entered Medicare last June. I now ask myself this: “I spent the first 65 years of my life trying to get away from health insurance companies. Why would I voluntarily go back to them?”

The answer, of course, is diminished mental capacity.

Continue reading “Attention Senior Citizens – have your grandchild read this to you” →

One of the most unsavory remnants of the Obama era is known as the “private mandate,” a requirement that every citizen purchase health care insurance from a private corporation, or face a severe penalty. This requirement led to a new bureaucracy that tracked every American to make sure we had insurance. It was suffocating and onerous – the health insurance industry (“Americas Health Insurance Providers,” or AHIP for short) bullying us into buying their crappy products, using Obama as a sock puppet.

The Affordable Care Act, ACA, or “Obamacare” (as if) was challenged in court on this basis, and was spared by a 2012 ruling that said that the penalty is a tax, and Congress has the power to tax. I do not know if this was an unintended consequence, or if the people around Trump are really that clever, but in late 2017 as part of a broad tax bill, Congress eliminated the penalty. The Fifth Circuit recently held that 2017 act constitutional, and here is the catch: The “attributes that saved the [ACA] statute because it could be read as a tax no longer exist.” The writing on the wall says Obamacare is dead! Long live Obamacare!

Continue reading “Is Obamacare dead? Hurray! Long live Obamacare!” →