How will the abolishment of Medicare affect your RVing?

[Naio]

Medicare is famous for putting almost all of its budget into actual healthcare, with administrative costs just a tiny fraction of private insurance companies' costs.

Now that it is going to be privatised, and costs passed onto consumers, people over 65 can plan on paying double or triple what younger people pay for Obamacare. (Trump now says he will preserve Obamacare.)

How will this affect your budget? Will you be able to keep RVing? Will this change the RVing lifestyle nationwide?

I wonder if RVing will become something only younger people with mobile jobs can afford to do, and retirees will be priced out of the market. I would not like to see that.

---

Edited to add:

This thread has become rancorous, with people making a lot of accusations and extremist political claims and name-calling. I don't want that.

Just to clarify (and calm people down), we are not talking about campaign promises and tv news.

The Republican platform for 2016 says they will privatize Medicare, pass the increased costs onto seniors, and raise the Medicare age. I do not have a crystal ball. I do not know whether the new Congress will keep this pledge. But a wise person would plan for the possibility that Republicans will do what they believe their voters voted for. So, what are you planning?

I would like this thread to stick to how this affects RVing -- the industry, the RV community, and individual people here. As I have said repeatedly.

[toedtoes]

fj12ryder wrote:
I've read the whole thread and I don't think most people condemned the OP for being hysterical. The general thought seems to be that the OP is putting too much credence into campaign promises and election driven platforms. The talking heads take those agendas and turn them into actual events. But, like most campaign promises and election driven platforms, very little will actually come to pass.

Getting worked up over what could happen is just foolish. That tends to liken one to the protesters that protest events that haven't happened, and may never happen. But they protest because they might happen.

I agree with your post - except that folks have condemned the OP for listening to the media, not providing facts, etc., and then THEY post thinks like we were going to have a dictatorship. The truth is everyone is letting this stuff get to them in one way or another - regardless of whether they're red or blue or green or yellow or whatever. Nothing is going to change until we ALL stop going over the top with our fears and start actually CONVERSING WITH (not TALKING TO) one another with respect.

[westernrvparkow]

The song is old, the performers are all old enough for medicare themselves, but the words ring as true as ever:

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Are now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss


CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC and all the other letterheads have never explained politics better than the wild child band from England. Thank you Who!

[fj12ryder]

I've read the whole thread and I don't think most people condemned the OP for being hysterical. The general thought seems to be that the OP is putting too much credence into campaign promises and election driven platforms. The talking heads take those agendas and turn them into actual events. But, like most campaign promises and election driven platforms, very little will actually come to pass.

Getting worked up over what could happen is just foolish. That tends to liken one to the protesters that protest events that haven't happened, and may never happen. But they protest because they might happen.

[toedtoes]

henkelphoto wrote:
Big Katuna,

I haven't read this whole thread but want to respond to your comment about a CT scan costing $1000. I am 65 and am still on my wife's insurance. I recently had a MRI (which I believe is costlier than a CT scan) and total cost was $216. Now I had already paid my deductible which is $350 a year. My insurance is not ACA and I don't know if yours is but the $1k seems awfully high.

Both are a lot more expensive than $216. Several years ago I had an MRI and I had to pay my $500 deductible plus another 20 percent of the total cost for it - and that didn't cover the entire cost. This year, I had a CT scan done and the actual cost was over $1000 (fortunately, a $26,000 cost ER visit (paid $2750 with insurance) already covered my deductible so I didn't have to pay anything for the CT scan.

[toedtoes]

Really people, you're still condemning the OP for being hysterical and not getting real facts while someone above has posted that we've narrowly escaped a dictatorship??????????????????????????

Funny how hyperbole is OK when it's done on your side of the fence.

[ljr]

SCVJeff wrote:
Where do people come up with this stuff?

The nice people on TV gave him the inside scoop. I wish it were true.

[Tom_Barb]

It is my humble opinion that until we change our method of collecting taxes the US will never have enough money to pay the real cost of health care.
How the new administration will handle this problem ? We will simply have to wait and see.
the republicans have a mandate on the hill, and are about to swing the Supreme court to the conservative side. I will predict that that if they do nothing as in the past, in 4 years this country will kick their butts out.

[Big_Katuna]

clicky link

Did you see an actual bill to the insurance company or is that the amount you paid?

[henkelphoto]

Big Katuna,

I haven't read this whole thread but want to respond to your comment about a CT scan costing $1000. I am 65 and am still on my wife's insurance. I recently had a MRI (which I believe is costlier than a CT scan) and total cost was $216. Now I had already paid my deductible which is $350 a year. My insurance is not ACA and I don't know if yours is but the $1k seems awfully high.

[Big_Katuna]

To respond to the thread topic; We are paying $1600 a month for high deductible healthcare. We will RV less in a cheaper rig if Medicare is messed with.

We are 63 now and were really hoping that Medicare stays intact.

We have been paying for our own insurance for 20 years. The only time it ever went down and benefits improved were the first few years of the ACA. Sadly, that is changing.

When we did retirement planning with professional planners did anyone ever think medical costs would rise so fast and so high.

Having had a million dollar claim and spending two months in the hospital, much of it in ICU having gone in for outpatient surgery, I have more insight than many of you.

The insurance companies are greed driven.

Costs CAN be controlled but the pigs are feeding from the trough.

Medicare is well run and is very efficient. Some problems? Sure. So work on those.

A CT Scan in Germany, Netherlands, Mexico, Spain, UK costs around and under $300, which is what a Medicare facility charges and gets paid.

When insurance is involved that CT scan is over $1000 dollars.

Total rip off.

[pigman1]

Unbelievable. This political thread drones on for 5 pages and if the word GUN is mentioned anywhere on the forum it's closed and removed almost immediately. Oops, I said the bad word (GUN) so maybe now this one will be closed and removed too. Well past time.

[2oldman]

lbrjet wrote:
I have nothing to say, but just wanted to be part of history in the making.

LOL.. good one!

[2oldman]

winnietrey wrote:
I see no solution to rising health care costs. Up and until we address the real issues that drive health care costs. Which are, we are getting fatter, sicker and living longer.

Absolutely.

We're getting sicker because we're getting fatter. Health care is as much or more the responsibility of the patient in preventing life-long expensive care.

[2oldman]

fj12ryder wrote:
^^^^^^Exactly so. I don't understand why people are so upset that this thread is still surviving.

I'm not upset, nor do I really care.. I just don't understand it. "Normally" this would have been gone yesterday. And the thread title isn't even true.

I wonder how long a thread titled "How does Trump's election affect your RVing future?" would last.

[fj12ryder]

^^^^^^Exactly so. I don't understand why people are so upset that this thread is still surviving. If they don't like the subject matter they can simply block the thread. Easy peasy.

Why do they feel the need to force their views upon others? I block tons of threads that don't interest me. Don't like the subject matter? Don't read the thread. Problem solved. With no intervention needed from Moderators of Administrators.