[FRIAM] Musk’s America Party – Some Thoughts from Afar

[steve smith]

Marcuswrote:
>
> The spending mostly comes from the elderly.
>
With a guaranteed minimum income, AI displacement, and the universal 
agreement that "one should not spend more than they make", I think this 
graph suggests we revisit the world of Logan's Run forthwith:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RNDovT38J0



    and if you need to get THAT dystopian image out of your mouth,
    I recommend Sean Connery's role as Zardoz, though not so keen on his
    costumery !
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzsw07QFe4s




What is that blip-step in the chart at age 85?  A data anomaly? A 
signature of something in the Medicare code that allows/requires folks 
85 and over a little extra payola?  Or something that happened in 1940, 
effecting the health of all adults born before that year?


>
>
>

I can't believe I"m on the (far) left side of that curve.  That sure 
looks like a sysiphean hill to slog up?  Until last year I had never 
spent more on "health care" for myself than a bottle of Ibuprofen or 
pack of bandaids.   Wait, I did spend $900+ a year in penalties for not 
spending 2-4 times that on insurance I was choosing not to use... does 
that count. (I don't blame Obama, but the "mandate" wasn't one of my 
favorite of his actions)...

I finally let Social Security start paying me my "pension" and they 
pressured me into letting them send a chunk of that to Medicare, so I 
let them do so and now I need all kinds of medical care I didn't need 
before.  After all I need to get "my money's worth"?

Actually at the same time (to spite my face/wallet?) I hired a doc who 
has an office next to the old Pojoaque PO and Carwash (for the locals) 
for $90ish/month to "keep me healthy".. she doesn't take Medicare (or 
any form of insurance) and makes housecalls (if it is important and 
appropriate)....   she talked me into all kinds of lab tests and then 
medications to balance my various numbers (which is working, though I 
can't see a change in my umwelt over it)...   She also convinced me that 
the debilitating pain in my hips was never going to get better on it's 
own and that while *I* might enjoy hobbling around, it was damned hard 
for everyone else to watch (kindof like the argument for mandating 
seatbelts and motorcycle helmets) so I let her send me to the 
radiologist who confirmed "yep, those hips are toast!" and showed me how 
the round balls in the round sockets were square-stubs in roundish 
sockets...

So Uncle Sam (or Donald or Biden or Kamala) has been paying the test 
labs and the radiologist a pretty reasonably small fraction of what they 
bill for those services and I get dinged for various bits of it 
(deductibles and copays) which is annoying but given the fancy buildings 
and machines they are maintaining, "only reasonable"?   So to keep her 
from pressuring me for colonoscopies and full-body calcification scans I 
agreed to see an orthopedic surgeon who looked at my Xrays and agreed 
with the Radiologist "Yep, those hips are toast!" and then proceeded to 
talk me into letting him cut each leg off, remove the hinge, and put it 
back on with tungsten-ceramic hinges guaranteed to last a lifetime (if I 
don't have the bad form of living too long as Marcus chart suggests I 
*might*).   So as you all know if you read past the subject lines of my 
massive missives, last year about this time they put me under, cut the 
first leg off (left a few shreds attached for blood/nerve/lymph) and 
stuck in the hardware, revived me, insulted me with an overnight stay in 
the hospital I didn't want, etc... then sent me to someone (physical 
terrorist) who was supposed to teach me how to "walk right" again.  
After that all got better, we did it again.

Meanwhile if I believed the billing departments a the doc, the hospital, 
the radiologist, the anesthetists, the physical terrorists, the 
hinge-makers, the silver-bandage suppliers, the blood thinner folks, the 
blood thickener folks, etc.  it was going to cost Aunt Kamala upwards of 
$70K for me to have fresh hinges (and hopefully a lot less misery).   
But nope!  not only did Aunt Kamala get sent packing (thank you Elno and 
Bozo and the Zuckster and Rogan and Lex and ??)  but it seems those 
numbers are all for show.   I'm pretty sure (if I sorted the numbers 
out), the total payments from Uncle Donald for both hinge replacements 
was order $18k with me forking over, myself the price of a cheap used 
car ($6k) for all that abuse and residual damage.    Who pays full price?

So I guess I owe the rest of the country a few years of my allotted 
~$6k/year.   I pay cash for meds I want to (believe I do not) not need, 
and I pay my Doc by auto-transfer monthly, and if I do go for the 
colonoscopy, I might instead buy the Dominatrix-of-choice DaveW 
recommends, a decent endoscope and tip her extra to "take pictures" 
while she's working out her own daddy issues on me.    I think GPT or 
Claude or Gemini would be eager to look those pictures over  and tell me 
if it is time to go back under anasthaesia and "the knife" or continue 
on in blissful less-ignorance (willful for sure).  I don't know if Doc 
Stephanie will want to consult, but if George and Dan say "those are 
benign polyps", that's good enough for me?!

I'm not sure what poverty level is these days but minimum wage suggests 
that the average poverty-earner doesn't make a lot more than the rest of 
you are expected to pay for me or access to the big fancy buildings with 
expensive automobiles parked in the Staff Lot to entertain my multiple 
hypochondrias?  I already pay about $2500/year to uncle Donald (from 
what he grudgingly pays ME out of my lifetime savings account called 
Social Security) and about half more that to Doc Stephanie and the 
Pharmacy...   it is all so very complicated?

And what does all this mean to folks in the Donbas, or Raffah or the 
south side of LA or an immigrant work camp in Iowa that is about to be 
raided?   It means I'm a spoiled, old white guy with nothing better to 
do than rant to others not that unlike me (except for all the details)...

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