A Crisis in Government, Some Medicare Information, FloriDUH Does it Again and Poetry Corner

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Seventy Million Fools

Some surveys report that seven out of ten Republicans think the election was illegitimate and GOP leaders in Congress are listening to them and the President rather than to the State officials who ran the election and cannot confirm anything fraudulent or illegal. 

Why then does the President keeps pushing sure-to-lose meritless litigation? Here’s why!   If he delays resolution of the issue another month, he gets the election out of the Electoral College and into the House, with one vote per State.  Americans will not let this happen.

Gen. Mark Milley - Head of Joint Chiefs of Staff

In some manner, the Joint Chiefs of Staff will ultimately step in, when it is clear that national security is endangered by Trump’s failure to cooperate with a transition to the President-Elect, and by his tearing down of key parts of our governmental structure. (Look at the people he is firing and those who are quitting.)  

Joint Chiefs head General Mark Milley says that the military will not be involved in resolving a disputed election, but would not follow an illegal order either.  Like it or not, the military is involved in this situation, brought to the fore by the firing of the Secretary of Defense.  I feel that ulltimately the military will live up to their oath to defend the Constitution which takes precedence over their taking orders from the Commander in Chief.  Only then will all the States finally be able to certify their election results.

How the 70 million who, mostly out of ignorance of the facts and/or chronic gullibility, voted for Trump and that seven out of ten Republicans who believe his lies about the election results’ illegitimacy, will behave is the next question the nation must answer.  Stay tuned. Do you know where your passport is?

 JL

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Medicare Recipients Take Note 

Joe Namath Touting Medicare Part C

The ads flooding your TV screen about switching your Medicare plans during the current (Ending Dec. 7) Open Enrollment Period are not a scam, but they are not totally honest either, and some older people may be fooled by them.  There’s a lot they don’t mention. With many generalizations, here is some information which may be of assistance.

Medicare consists of four parts, A, B, C, and D. 

Part A pays most, but not all your hospital bills and is paid for by the Federal government. 

Part B pays, after some deductibles, 80% of your doctor bills.  Remember that there is a difference between hospital and doctor bills.  You pay for this with a deduction from your Social Security payment up to as much as $140 monthly. 

Part C plans are Medicare Advantage Plans, usually HMOs or PPOs (Health Maintenance Organizations or Preferred Provider Organizations), of which there are many, and which require that you not have “traditional” Medicare which consists of Parts A & B.  You cannot have them if you choose Part C.  These Medicare Advantage plans may cost nothing at all or considerably less than staying with Parts A & B, especially if you purchase a Medicare Supplement or Medigap plan to fill in the gaps in Parts A & B, most specifically that 20% of doctor bills which Part B will not cover.  (According to AARP information, about 42% of all Medicare recipients are covered by Part C rather than by the "traditional" Parts A & B.)

During the annual Open Enrollment period (now), one can switch between existing Part C plans or replace existing “traditional” Medicare’s Parts A and B with a Part C plan with no questions asked.  Dropping “traditional” Medicare’s Part B, which you must do if switching to a Part C plan, along with dropping Part A means that up to $140 monthly for Part B will no longer be deducted from your Social Security payment, so that is sometimes advertised as “money in your pocket.”

Part D covers prescription costs.  Various plans are offered, some combined with Part C plans but also available for purchase by those with Parts A and B, which do not have prescription coverage.

Medicare Supplement, or Medigap plans, to cover Part A and Part B “gaps” in coverage, particularly the 20% Part B does not cover, are always available but unless one enrolls in them when initially enrolling in Medicare, the insurance company issuing them can reject an applicant, raise their premium, or not cover pre-existing conditions for a specified period.  To have them requires one to have Parts A and B and most importantly, these plans are not included in the “no questions asked” Open Enrollment period currently being advertised on television.  Medicare Supplement policies come with various levels of benefits designated by letters, but their provisions are standardized among the companies selling them, but whose premiums are not the same.

The most expensive way to proceed is to be insured in “traditional” Medicare Parts A  & B, and purchase separate Part D coverage and a Medigap policy to fill in what Parts A and B do not cover, primarily deductibles and that 20% which Part B does not cover.   At the other end of the spectrum, many Part C plans, even those with prescription coverage, cost nothing.  Remember that traditional Part A did not call for any payment by an insured. The government paid for it.  Well, in a Part C Medicare Advantage plan, an HMO or PPO, that government money goes to the Part C insurance company, and with it they provide benefits.  Typically, it is about $8,000 a year per insured.

Often these Part C benefits limit the hospitals one may stay in, limit one’s choice of medical providers, can utilize telephone or internet doctor or nurse appointments instead of face to face exams and sometimes not be usable outside of local areas.  This is less true of PPOs which have a broader choice of doctors and hospitals, but which cost a bit more.  Added Part C benefits such as vision, dental or hearing provisions are usually very limited.  Traditional Medicare’s Parts A and B, on the other hand are accepted by any physician or hospital participating in Medicare, anywhere in the country.

What this comes down to is that you get what you pay for.  Bear that in mind when you see the commercials on television and the fulll page ads in the newspapers.  They are saying one of two things:  Switch your present Part C plan or dump your Parts A & B and replace them with a Part C plan,  Joe Namath was a fine quarterback but don’t accept him as your health care advisor.  Call the number he gives you and you will be connected with a salesperson (licensed agent) offering the plans of many companies selling Part C coverage, which vary greatly.  And if you are sticking with Parts A & B, they can provide or switch your Medicare Supplement Plans, but these usually require that health questions be asked, and you can be turned down.

 

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Florida Will Never Change 

Birds of a Feather - Ron and Don

In a letter of mine published back on July 18 in the Palm Beach Post, I suggested that were Florida to vote Democratic in the presidential election, Governor DeSantis ought to resign since the election might be considered a referendum on how to deal with the Covid19 pandemic, an issue on which our Governor parroted the now-defeated President’s position. 

Well, contrary to the election’s national results, Florida voted Republican, justifying Governor DeSantis’ continuing to open up venues where people can gather and spread the virus, oppose face mask mandates and generally not taking the pandemic very seriously. That’s apparently what the majority of voters in FloriDUH want.  Certainly, it is not reflected in the number of Canadians and others snowbird visitors who have chosen not to come to FloriDUH during the winter months.

                                    

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Poetry Corner  

Hughes

Here is the full poem from which an excerpt appeared in the last blog posting.  It was written in 1935, published in Esquire Magazine in 1936, at the height of the depression.  It expressed the feeling of Langston Hughes, a Black American as a Black and as an American.  The 45th President, unknowingly I am sure, plagerized the title, but not the thoughts.  How much of this feeling is still true today? It was reflected in the vote of the Black community in the recent election.

Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!