INSURANCE -- IT'S GREAT!

What the hell is wrong or bad about insurance?

I understand that we'd rather hoorah around on those bucks we spend for car insurance, home insurance and all the other types of insurance we have to pay for. I used to gripe about all those payments too -- until I got hit in the rear by a distracted driver, needed desperately to have something done about my sudden attack of strep throat, suddenly realized I was too damn old to keep on working like I had been, etc.

Without medicare, our social security checks and my wife's state retirement, we would be up that famous creek without even the hint of a paddle! Most of the time, it costs us $10 co-pay to go see the doctor.

I know. It's not pleasant to contemplate all that money going out every month for required insurance. I didn't like it when I had to adjust to paying for auto insurance. I was a careful driver. Still had accidents happen though and was mighty thankful to have it then.

Forward thinking people saw the need for social security, medicare, the need for universal auto insurance, etc. The regressive rethugs screamed about all of it.

Guess what? Everything adjusted and we're now thankful (if we have brains in our heads) to have those wise provisions.

So, it's time the idiots on the right shut the hell up with their lies and their doom and gloom pronouncements. The happiest nations on earth have already implemented something similar, and once we work the bugs out -- and there are bugs, mostly put there by that same ignorant crowd to try to sabotage the whole thing -- we'll all be ecstatically happy with the end result -- just as I'm ecstatically happy to get those checks every month that keep us housed and fed and leading an acceptable quality of life.

OF LIES AND LIARS

Rick Perry came out and labeled Social Security a "ponzi scheme." 

In this world there are "lies" and "damn lies."  Perry's statement is a "damn lie," and he's a "damn liar."  I think he knows it, too.

If Social Security is a ponzi scheme, your life insurance policy (if you're wise enough and employed enough to have life insurance), car insurance and homeowners insurance and any other type of insurance you carry is a "ponzi scheme."

I carried life insurance for many years.  I never collected a dime because I was lucky enough to escape the "grim reaper," until the present anyway.  Somebody else got a share of my premiums when someone in their family or business suddenly and unexpectedly died. 

Do I consider myself a victim because I personally didn't get my money back?  Was I "ponzied?"

Of course not!

I had the protection of that policy during the time I carried it to protect me and mine against the vagaries of happenstance.  If I had suddenly died, those dependent on me would have had something to fall back on while they got on with their grieving lives.

I've paid out a whole lot more in auto insurance premiums than I have ever collected.  Same with homeowners insurance.  I don't resent or feel victimized when I pay my premiums and I hope I never have a future claim.  What I pay in goes into a big pot that protects a huge pool of policy holders against possible future disaster--including me.

Social Security is a national insurance policy everybody pays into.  A certain number are never going to collect on that policy because they won't live that long.  But, if they do, the protection will be there, and I can tell you from personal experience that it means a great deal to me.  I would be destitute and homeless without it.

Social Security will be solvent for a long time.  It has had to be tweaked in the past, and it will need tweaking in the future to keep it viable.  Do you still pay the same auto insurance premiums you paid a decade ago?  Of course not.  Why would you think Social Security won't need any adjusting?  Economies don't stay static.

This is just more of the push to return us to a Dickensian world of robber barons and basically destitute masses of underprivileged serfs who have nothing to protect themselves from total penury.  It would be nice if we could all be as lucky as Rick Perry who can look forward to a comfortable future as he continues to drink and eat from the public trough--with guaranteed retirement, medical coverage, and a host of other perks that would be a "ponzi scheme" if they were directed toward common citizens.

RICK PERRY, YOU'RE A LYING, DISGUSTING HYPOCRITE!