When I’m 65

By BARRY FRIEDMAN

There must be a law that columnists who turn 65 must write about it — the lessons learned, the battles won and lost, but mostly, the 19,457 phone calls they receive about Medicare supplemental and Advantage plans.

What I have learned in life — really the only thing I can say for certain — is that the National Do Not Call Registry is worthless.

In 1965, then-President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into law in a ceremony in Kansas City where ex-President Harry Truman was enrolled as the program’s first beneficiary and received the first Medicare card.

It was a simpler time back then. Republicans and Democrats put aside partisan differences to ensure elderly Americans would no longer needlessly drop dead for lack of access to basic healthcare.

Who am I kidding?

California Gov. Ronald Reagan said, “If you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free,” and Sen. Barry Goldwater said, “Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” During his presidential run in 1996 — 1996! — Bob Dole remarked, “I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare … because we knew it wouldn’t work.”

Good to remember from time to time, especially when thinking about the horror of today’s Republicans, your father’s GOP was no day at the beach, either.

David Blatt, who teaches public policy, including classes in health policy, in the Master of Public Administration program at the University of Oklahoma–Tulsa, recently wrote in the Tulsa World about the problems with healthcare in America: “Unlike in virtually every other developed nation, in the US the health insurance one qualifies for can be affected by a whole host of factors, among them one’s age, employment, income, immigration status, and state of residence, or whether one is Native American, a veteran, pregnant, or suffering from a chronic health condition.” Blatt, who used to be the executive director of Oklahoma Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning think tank (and believe me, there is no lonelier job in America than giving liberals in Oklahoma a reason to live), went on to write, “Many of these circumstances can change from year to year and even from month to month, so that the loss of a job, a promotion, finishing college, or giving birth can mean cycling in and out of coverage with different insurers, providers, and financial responsibilities. The result is an overall system that is complex, disruptive, inefficient, and costly — not to mention one where upwards of 30 million Americans have no health insurance at all.”

The beauty of Medicare is if you’re 65 or older, you get it.

Period.

And you keep it until you die.

Period.

And you won’t lose it if you get sick or move or lose your job.

Period.

When my father lived in Las Vegas, he would get together for Sunday dinners with fellow octogenarians and nonagenarians. I was invited to one of these meals. That week’s host, Vicki, 84, had her arm in a sling from recent surgery.

“I don’t want government controlling my healthcare,” she said. “It’s socialism.”

“What do you think Medicare is?” I asked, asking the obvious.

“The difference is,” she said, “I paid in.”

She told me what kind of work she did, the kind of money she made, and how many years after 1966 she worked.

I was ready.

“The Medicare tax started at 0.35%,” I told her. “It’s now 1.45%. Let’s call it 1% for the years you worked, meaning if you averaged $25,000 per year for 30 years until you retired, you made $750,000. At a 1% rate, you paid approximately $7,500 into Medicare. Which is about the cost of the anesthesia during your elbow surgery.”

“What’s your point?”

“This is where the ‘thank you’ goes. People you don’t know have bought your Amlodipine and insulin, have subsidized all your doctor visits, paid for this surgery and will pay for all future ones. If not for socialized medicine, you’d be dead. As would everyone in this room … not to ruin dinner or anything.”

“Jack,” she said to my father, “don’t bring him anymore.”

She was laughing, but I don’t think she thought it was funny.

I’m looking at my Medicare card right now.

Insurance is no longer teasing me.

Thank you.

Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. In addition to “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Road Comic,” “Four Days and a Year Later” and “The Joke Was On Me,” his first novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages,” a book about the worst love story ever, was published by Balkan Press in February. See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2022

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