Quote:
Originally Posted by tony286
They arent a ponzi scheme they have been paying out for over 70 years. Do you have any idea what health insurance would cost when your 68? 70?
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Tony, that's my complaint: WHY does going to the doctor suddenly cost so much in the United States? And WHY do we pay so much more for the same exact prescription medication from the exact same companies in the U.S.?
When I was a kid, it didn't take insurance to be sick. You went to the doctor, or hospital and paid your bill. Even when I grew up it was still that way.
For instance: When I was in my mid-20's I was living in Ft. Lauderdale playing in my band. I made around $500 a week (great money in 1986 for a musician). My stepson had his appendix rupture and had to be rushed to the hospital. He was in for 3 days. I don't remember the exact bill...but I do remember that my wife (who was a bartender on the strip in Lauderdale at the time) and I were able to scrape together the money to pay the entire bill. We had no health insurance. And nobody we knew had any either (granted we were young)
Fast forward to 2010: Claudia had her appendix do the same thing. It cost almost $30,000 by the time all the bills rolled in! Unbelievable!
Then you can do a quick search for medical tourism...people are traveling to India and Costa Rica and Tijuana because the exact same procedures are 10 times cheaper!
Whatever is causing this...needs to be figured out and fixed.
Instead the answer always seems to be tax us more (or in the case of health, FORCE everyone to buy more insurance).
Also...in the interest of honest talk.
Here is the exact definition of "Ponzi Scheme". The same thing that has gotten many people put in prison:
"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation. The Ponzi scheme usually entices new investors by offering returns other investments cannot guarantee, in the form of short-term returns that are either abnormally high or unusually consistent. The perpetuation of the returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises and pays requires an ever-increasing flow of money from investors to keep the scheme going.
The system is destined to collapse because the earnings, if any, are less than the payments to investors. Usually, the scheme is interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses because a Ponzi scheme is suspected or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases."
So I think that when people say "ponzi scheme" about Social Security, they are trying to say that it's set up where the people paying in NOW are paying for the people already getting the money. And there is no bank account with the money that you and I are paying in right now that is being untouched and gathering interest for our retirement.
And as more and more people are collecting Social Security (as people live longer) and less and less are putting money in...the whole thing is going to collapse.
The illegality of the Ponzi Scheme is that people investing right now will never see their return on their money. And that is where the Social Security system is heading as well. It's gonna go bankrupt and we won't see the money we put in.
I personally feel it's total b.s. for the govt. to force that on people as well. If I had my choice I would opt out of that so fast it would make your head spin. But they won't allow it.
Why?
"Well Robbie, because then people would just blow their money and have nothing at the end and the state would have to pay for them"
No.
That may be true but that's not WHY the govt. forces everyone to stay in.
They force us because WE are paying for people getting money NOW.
And without us paying in right NOW, the whole system collapses because it has none of the money that was paid in by the people collecting it now.
Thus, the "ponzi scheme" comment.
Only usually a "ponzi scheme" is something that people get tricked into. This one we are forced into by law.