I'll be getting Medicare next year and it is like every thing our government does—some one has to profit from the sick and dying

By SJ Otto
I turn 65 next January. That is when I can start to benefit from Medicare. Until recently I thought that Medicare just pays for our medical bills when we get old enough to receive it. That’s not what it is at all. Instead it is a convoluted system of insurance companies that we have to choose from. We pay for the insurance, and it isn’t that cheap. I already knew that it only pays for 80 percent of our medical needs. We pay an insurance company for this privilege. Now I have to make all kinds of decisions as to what company I will use? With who will I make plans with? And—what kind of plan will I need?

What bothers me the most is that all of this is made difficult to choose from and confusing, because here in the USA our system is dedicated to the idea that someone must profit from those who are sick, old and dying. When I went to Cuba this last summer, I realized people there don’t have to pay for their medical needs. And that goes for all people, poor, wealthy, young or old. They also aren’t bothered by commercials on their TV.^[1]

Here in the US we are clobbered with commercials. I find them obnoxious, annoying and most of the crap they show us and most of the crap they tell us is deceptive. I mention commercials because I see one after the other, on TV, telling me that it is time to register for Medicare, for those who are eligible (mostly people over 65), and I need to register with these various companies. They are all trying to get me to call their number and use their company to find a medical plan. All of these commercials have testimonials by old people telling us they have a plan/ company/ program that cost them either nothing or close to nothing. ”You have to find a plan that fits you!” all these ads keep telling me. If there is a catch to all the free stuff they advertize there are not telling us what it is. And once again, all of this is so people can profit off of our suffering.

I’m trying to imagine who or which plan is best for me. Are there plans where people pay a lot of money for the things they need?—in other words there plans in which we get over charged and we have to avoid accidently choosing those plans? It is a lot like the folks who brag that their computer and equipment are “user friendly.” And I have to wonder if there are sales people out there who are offering us “user hostile computers”—if we really want them. But then who chooses the hostile computers? Who chooses an expensive plan that pays for very little?

As difficult and confusing this process is, I’m surprised anyone chooses a Medicare plan. But they do—apparently all old people eventually choose a Medicare plan. This is what I must do now. I am confused and I get plenty of headaches trying to understand all of this non-sense. Maybe some day our politicians will build up the courage to ditch all the insurance companies and provide us with Medicare for all. If that happens we will have a system as generous as the system they have in Cuba. On that Island, where they supposedly have “no human rights,” they have the right to get medical care when they are sick—regardless to their age or income. 

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[1] For example see:

and: