Medicare
Every now and then someone comes along who has broad insight and the knowledge to back up his statements. Ben Stein is a writer, an actor, an attorney and a professor but above all, an economist.
When I read something by Ben Stein I feel that it is not simply someone’s opinion but information that has been well considered.
While chasing another subject, I recently ran across an article that Stein wrote last year regarding the cost of Medicare that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
I was pursuing the trend of the Euro against the Dollar and wondered if crude oil was really increasing in price or whether the US dollar was becoming worth less.
If the trend continues the dollar will not only be worth less, it will be worthless!
Today it takes $1.48 US to buy 1 Euro. Six years ago a Euro could be bought for $0.835. That’s a 77% increase in the value of the Euro over the dollar.
Crude oil was selling for $51.80 in January of this year. This week it’s around $99 a barrel. That’s a 91% increase in less than a year. An oil barrel contains 42 gallons so at $99 a barrel that means crude oil costs $2.36 a gallon before any refining.
The following is a quote from Stein’s article of July 2006 entitled “Your Golden Years Don’t Have to be Tarnished”.
“Inevitably, barring some strange turn of events, this means that foreigners will want to hold less of our currency and bonds. This will lower the value of the dollar and raise the value of the currencies of other nations that export more then we do. This, in turn, will mean that oil and gasoline and other commodities will be more expensive in dollars.”
He was correct in forecasting what we are experiencing today. I mentioned in a previous article that there is pressure within OPEC to no longer accept US dollars.
Getting back to Medicare, it was in this same article by Stein that he forecast where the costs were heading.
Stein projects that the cost of Medicare alone will total or exceed the assets of the entire
In “the old days” people would put away money to pay their own medical bills. People took a great deal of pride in their self-sufficiency. They were ‘conservative’. People generally had too much pride to live beyond their means and find themselves having to ask for a hand-out.
That was a reasonable way of life in a realistic world. That was when a hospital room cost twenty to thirty dollars a day. Today, a visit to an “Emergency Room” can cost a person $1800 to have a foot X-rayed. People cannot be expected to have that kind of cash on hand particularly when the price of heating oil and gasoline has risen to such a high percentage of the average worker’s paycheck.
One of his solutions is for Americans to save more than they are presently doing and to consider investing in stocks of emerging countries like
That sounds like a sensible thing to do but the average person has nothing left over at the end of the month to either save or invest.
The future doesn’t look very bright. Perhaps we should consider that’s it’s a lot less expensive to maintain rather than repair, whether it’s a house, a car or a body.
A return to “the good days” might be a reasonable partial solution to the cost of medical treatment by reconsidering “natural healing” and “home remedies”.
It apparently kept our ancestors alive long enough as evidenced by our being here today.
The large pharmaceutical companies are still investigating the tropical forests for potential cures so perhaps we might start to apply what we have already proven.
If the herb doesn’t work then we still have the option of the high-priced high-tech pill.
