Is a New Retirement Account in Our Future?

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soundtracks of AL 5:40AM July 17, 2009

Corruption in the medical establishment, money spent on medical research, and developement of new drugs and "extraordinary means" of prolonging life has robbed us of the expectation of a comforable and relatively safe existence for the average citizen.
A statistic that I learned in nursing school in the early 90's illustrates this issue.
"Approximately 80% of the total money spent on a person's health care during a lifetime is spent in the last 2 weeks of his life."
I wish there was something that could be done to tame this greedy and inefficient industry.
Every day we are bombarded with adds from Pharmaceutical companies for drugs with dangerous side effects to treat symptoms of diseases that are for the most part the effects of poor lifesytle and or diet choices. At other times these "syndromes" whose names are actually created by a think tank trained in Madison Ave PR techniques are in fact symptoms no doubt often caused by poor nutrition or the use of prescription medication.
We need to reward people for preventative measurs taken and educate those who are making poor choices not give them expensive drugs and treatments that rob the rest of us of the chance to get basic medical care.
We need to reward families for keeping their handicapped or elderly family members at home. Nursing homes make over 5K per month for even the least infirmed of their patients. They often bilk the Medicare system for rehabilatative measures without any hope of patient improvememt.
Who knows what they get now. These little entrepeneurs are getting rich.
The paperwork continues to grow causing much of the operating expense involved with these services.
Their must be a better way.

Ron Robertson of IN 12:25PM March 11, 2009

is not "tapped out". It has run a constant surplus and about $2,000,000,000,000 is supposed to be in reserve for its future.
Yeah, I know the money was stolen and spent on other things. Get it back from the payers of income tax who "borrowed" it.
Yeah, I know that means a return to the pre-Reagan income tax structure. Get on with it. You're late, citizens. Very, very late.

Muser of NM 12:35PM March 05, 2009

The only people who can retire today work for the government. Their pension plans are guaranteed. They are immune from economic conditions in employment and retirement, in most cases.I do not understand why their is not a public uproar over this. The disconnect between the public and private sectors is extreme. 80 percent of pay for the rest of one's life vs. a 3 percent 401k match.

Tom of IL 10:17AM March 05, 2009

It all sounds good until you look at what just happened to everybody's ,,,so called ,,,retirement plans ,,,seems like to me that everybody I know that were about ready to retire just lost about half their retirement when the stock market went south ! I say ,,,take all the money that the gov't has been robbing the social security funds of in recent years for the war and the economy ( that we all have been paying into for years ) and put it back where it belongs ( in the social security accounts ) !!! Now don't that sound like a good solution to you ? In other words ,,,stop robbing the old ,and disabled ( our weakest ) MAN UP ,and quit making them feel guilty for recieving it ,and us feel like they don't deserve it ,,,and PAY UP !

Jonas Riker of HI 2:37PM March 04, 2009