Vote once and never vote again

Part D is drug coverage. It’s not free either. And the premium is deducted directly from your state pension equivalent.

What Medicare Part D drug plans cover

All plans must cover a wide range of prescription drugs that people with Medicare take, including most drugs in certain protected classes,” like drugs to treat cancer or HIV/AIDS. A plan’s list of covered drugs is called a “formulary,” and each plan has its own formulary. Medicare drug coverage typically places drugs into different levels, called “tiers,” on their formularies. Drugs in each tier have a different cost. For example, a drug in a lower tier will generally cost you less than a drug in a higher tier

If there’s a generic drug, but your doctor says you should take a branded one, you have to pay for it yourself. If drug companies put up prices midway through an insurance period, your costs rise.

Costs for Medicare drug coverage

You'll make these payments throughout the year in a Medicare drug plan:

Premium
Yearly deductible
Copayments or coinsurance
Costs in the coverage gap

It’s impossible to say what these come to as they vary from person to person. The national base premium is around $35 a month, but premiums depend on income as well as other factors. The maximum in deductible is $545 a year. Co-pays are the killer, but once you and your insurance company combined have spent about $6000 on medication, your co-pay will only be 25%.

Anecdotally, my brother-n-law, a fit 80 year old, spends almost 50% of his income on Medicare and medication costs.

Well done if you got to the end of that lot!

I find it hard to believe anyone thinks it’s a good system, let alone better than any universal healthcare system, particularly for older people or those with chronic health conditions.

I want to add something

Re Part A deductibles/excess costs. There are no limits to the number of benefit periods in a year. So if you were in hospital three times, for even two days each time, you’d pay close $5000 just for being there.

Its a nightmare Siope !

Chocolatelovinggran

Thank you Macadia for the update. That is good news for all America. How recent is this? I was in California just before lockdown.

I'm not sure how recent, Chocolatelovinggran. I would have to do some research. I think ACA began around 2010 but it had some bumps in roll out where they would fine people for not signing up for it. It is better now. (Some called it ObamaCare, but that is not the real name). Large corporations are also required to pay for insurance for their employees - at least part of the cost. In the end, it's the pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies who are the clear winners, as always.

Wyllow3

Its a nightmare Siope !

It IS a nightmare to decipher and it would be rare to find a US citizen that understands it. They might have well written all of the rules in Sanskrit.

Thank you for this, everyone- most helpful.
Yes, I think that the employer contribution was the problem for my daughter when she and her husband were hoping to work in California. Her diabetes was the sticking point.

Oh Dickens do you currently have school age children? I could write all day about the things they come home saying...including the 50 odd genders they are taught at 8 years old and that only white people are racist..
As my 9 year old grandchild said " well, that's my childhood ruined....I can never unknow that now"

Siope

I want to add something

Re Part A deductibles/excess costs. There are no limits to the number of benefit periods in a year. So if you were in hospital three times, for even two days each time, you’d pay close $5000 just for being there.

Thanks Siope for those informative posts on Medicare.

So if you were in hospital three times, for even two days each time, you’d pay close $5000 just for being there.

The layers of admin necessary to process all these co-pays, deductibles, extra costs, must be quite heavy - not least for the individual.

So what happens if, for example, someone's income is so low that it is accounted for the moment it arrives in the bank account and there is no $5000 that can be spared to cover these hospital admissions?

I think I now understand the collective 'American' attitude towards healthcare (obviously excluding those who don't subscribe to it) which is so different to ours here in the UK.

Chatting to an American work colleague many years ago whilst he was on a visit to the company I worked for, when this subject came up in conversation - he said that healthcare was a privilege not a right. Further discussion revealed he believed that if you couldn't afford it then, like any other commodity, you couldn't have it. And he thought that was quite fair. I think that is the difference in our cultures regarding healthcare, and why so many Americans are horrified at the concept of it being "socialised".

A couple of years before he was convicted of securities fraud, Martin Shkreli was the chief executive of a pharmaceutical company that acquired the rights to Daraprim, a lifesaving antiparasitic drug. Previously the drug cost $13.50 a pill, but in Shkreli’s hands, the price quickly increased by a factor of 56, to $750 a pill. At a health care conference, Shkreli told the audience that he should have raised the price even higher. “No one wants to say it, no one’s proud of it,” he explained. “But this is a capitalist society, a capitalist system and capitalist rules.”
(from an editorial in The New York Times)

(Martin Shkreli is an American investor and businessman. He was convicted of financial crimes for which he served over six years in federal prison and was fined over 70 million dollars.)
(from Wiki)

American Capitalism is pretty brutal.

The guy talks absolute most of the time. He only looked less unhinged compared to poor Joe Biden who clearly has some sort of a cognitive issue.

Apparently, I have read, there are groups of Christians in the US who do not like to vote. In the ‘vote once’ speech he was appealing to them in the context of ‘electoral fraud’ which, existing or not, he claims he will ‘fix’. So dormant Republicans who do not vote will have no need to in the future as the system will be without fault. Just vote this time to fix all ills and the GOP, will consistently win every election! I don’t know about the fraud, I’m not a US citizen, but obviously this is the kind of naive rhetoric that every politician uses while campaigning, ours too. It’s a pity that this one, rather foolsh utterance, is being used to accuse Trump of wanting a dictatorship. I don’t like Trump but find the media in this country automatically biased against him, as they were/are about Reform. A shame, I thought grown up debate was a hallmark of a civilised society.

I have read that Trump has said he wants to be a dictator. Biden was right to say Trump is an existential threat to democracy.

I thought America was proud of being a democracy! Why should anyone think it was an advantage not to have to vote?

Maybe he thinks his supporters want him to rule America forever, and he said it to reach out to anyone who thinks that would be a good idea?

deanswaydolly

Oh Dickens do you currently have school age children? I could write all day about the things they come home saying...including the 50 odd genders they are taught at 8 years old and that only white people are racist..
As my 9 year old grandchild said " well, that's my childhood ruined....I can never unknow that now"

Oh Dickens do you currently have school age children?

I have school age grandchildren.

The eldest, 16, is currently studying political science and is aiming to get 'into' politics as a career. He temporarily lives in South Africa but came over here on holiday for the election so that he could campaign for his chosen party.

The second eldest is 13, and currently studying Lego - and how and where to buy it as cheaply as possible, as he has plans to build himself a 'Lego' house.

Macadia

What a strange thing for Donald Trump to say at his Christian rally. He said if they vote for him, it will be fixed so they never vote again. Why would anyone vote for THAT ? Am I misunderstanding something here?

I read that as a continuation of him staying in power and fixing things so he remains there like Putin!
But yes odd for him to say it out loud… probably inProject 2025 which he is backpeddling now denying knowing about it despite all his ally’s being involved and his VP pick Vance writing the foreword/ introduction/ preface.!!
He really wants to be ‘King’ , but more than that if he remains in power he can’t be tried in many of those criminal cases he faces! Horrible human!

Amalegra

Apparently, I have read, there are groups of Christians in the US who do not like to vote. In the ‘vote once’ speech he was appealing to them in the context of ‘electoral fraud’ which, existing or not, he claims he will ‘fix’. So dormant Republicans who do not vote will have no need to in the future as the system will be without fault. Just vote this time to fix all ills and the GOP, will consistently win every election! I don’t know about the fraud, I’m not a US citizen, but obviously this is the kind of naive rhetoric that every politician uses while campaigning, ours too. It’s a pity that this one, rather foolsh utterance, is being used to accuse Trump of wanting a dictatorship. I don’t like Trump but find the media in this country automatically biased against him, as they were/are about Reform. A shame, I thought grown up debate was a hallmark of a civilised society.

He said to all previously that he WOULD be “a Dictator on Day One” of his Presidency!
Don’t be taken in … the media likes the controversy , Trump sells papers/ makes news, but I don’t think that telling the TRUTH about him is being biased! As for debate…
He’s now backing out of debating Kamala Harris… he’s running scared!

deanswaydolly

Oh Dickens do you currently have school age children? I could write all day about the things they come home saying...including the 50 odd genders they are taught at 8 years old and that only white people are racist..
As my 9 year old grandchild said " well, that's my childhood ruined....I can never unknow that now"

I’m pretty much staggered by this as I have a daughter, still living at home, who is a Primary School teacher and last academic year taught year 3, 8&9 year old I believe, she certainly didn’t teach anything about 50 genders nor that only white people are racist. She was too busy following the national curriculum
and ensuring her pupils were reading and writing well, checking they’d eaten their lunches and running her after school club.

The explanations are just weird.

Quote Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said Sunday that President Trump was “obviously making a joke” when he urged Christian voters to vote for him in November and that, if they do, they “won’t have to vote anymore” because “everything” will be “fixed.”

“I think he’s obviously making a joke about how bad things had been under Joe Biden, and how good they’ll be if we send President Trump back to the White House so we can turn the country around,” Cotton said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“And that’s what the American people know,” he continued. “For four years, things were good with President Trump. We had stable prices, a growing economy, peace and stability around the world.”

Trump spoke at an event Friday hosted by the conservative Christian group Turning Point Action and urged Christians to vote for him in November.

“You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians,” Trump said Friday.

paddyann54

He wants to be King of America and give his children the right to inherit the position.Why not?We still have that archaic system surely it’s good enough for the USA. Maybe he forgot the American war to rid themselves of monarchy. Someone should remind him

Our Monarchy don’t have much power to do anything other than be figureheads, the same with most Monarchys nowadays.
Trump intends to be President and remain there - which does come with POWER. He has already fixed the Sipreme Court to give him immunity for most things recently!
He would be a Nightmare! And with Global consequences! He’s an Isolationist! In policy and in his life…everything for HIM!

* Supreme Court

I don't think you are misunderstanding it at all. Classic Troskyism - once 'the party' achieves power, no further reference to the people is ever needed - as the right people are in power. Elections can be so awkward - Mr P knows all about the tedium of 'fixing' the vote.

A lot of the plans to change the democracy is of course in Project 25, which we know has close links with Republican leaders.

Trump is claiming he has nothing to do with it/has no knowledge of but issued the statement,

"“I have nothing to do with, and know nothing about, Project 25.

The fact that I do is merely disinformation put out by the Radical Left Democrat Thugs. Do not believe them!” DJT.

Last time I was in US some said “ I love your accent. Where are you from?” I said “ England” She said “where is that?”
Some Americans think the King rules UK , they can’t understand that he just reigns.

Trump IS the US version of Putin! I fear he will get another term in office though.

God help the world if this lying,cheating horrible man becomes President.

deanswaydolly- where are your children at school? Why is this establishment not adhering to the National Curriculum for PSHE?
I speak as a retired HT and school governor,
with a close group of friends who are current HT's so I do know that this a very strange interpretation of the Curriculum.
Are the Senior Leaders aware of this teaching? Are the governors?