Re: McCain Plans Major Reductions to Medicare

The key is to overthrow the present system of managed illness and teach people how to properly care for themselves through diet and lifestyle in the first place and how to treat illness via natural means when it does occur.  As a caring person, I believe that it would be good to provide some kind of safety net, but the key is how to do that without heading too far down the road to socialism and without rewarding those who do not cure illness but only perpetuate it and cause further illness in the process.  Though perhaps harsh, any system of care should have disincentives for failing to properly live a lifestyle that was conducive to good health and incentives for those who do.

You are right - we cannot afford the present system of social security, medicare or medicaid.  They were SUPPOSED to have been funded with our contributions, but it has only been funded on paper and the money co-mingled with the rest of the money in the treasury - or I should say the rest of the debt.  We are bankrupt and the aging baby boomer generation will surely break the already empty bank when it comes to entitlements.

I once thought that the ultimate goal was to have the most, the biggest and the best and I spent like there was no tomorrow.  3300 square foot house with olympic size pool, built in hot tub with controls in the house to heat it before dashing outside in the middle of winter, rental house, boat with corvette engine, SUV with all the bells and whistles, gun collection, all kinds of big boy toys . . . monthly credit card bills of over $4000, house and utilities another $3500, partying and living the high life.  And then tomorrow came and it all came crashing down.   Now, poverty sucks, but let me tell you that when I was the "richest" I was also the most miserable.  Money cannot buy happiness my friend.  I also came to realize that it cannot buy health either.

Now, I live very modestly and realize that more modest housing, energy bills, transportation, and paying as I go for whatever toys I might wish on a lesser scale (boats, 4 wheelers, campers, whatever) allow me to do just about everything that those with the big monthly overhead does, without the worry and stress of finances, and with better health too.

I have no medical insurance either, btw, but have not been to see a doctor but a couple of times in the past two decades (once was for a brown recluse bite and they screwed that up).

DQ