Our Social Security program is the sadist embarrassment of our government. John McCann, one of the richest men in Congress, got $23,000 from Social Security last year, while most working American got between $300 and $700 per month. People cannot live on that especially when they have to pay co-pays and supplements to their Medicaid and Medicare.
It also amazes me how many IOUs Congress has put in the Social Security fund under the watchful eye of Senator McCann.
Furthermore, the way Social Security treats working Americans who become disabled is wrong in so many ways. When a working American becomes disabled, especially if it occurs gradually over time, and they finally face the embarrassment and admits that they can no longer work, they have to go through hours of detailed paperwork to file. They then have to wait six months to get their first rejection letter. They then have to file out more paperwork and wait another 120 days to get their second rejection letter. At which point they need to get an attorney to get their benefits, but the attorney takes a good portion. Yet drunks and drug addicts can get it with no problem.
A family friend was diagnosed with cancer last year. She got a few hundred dollars of Social Security, but it was no where near enough for her husband, an over-the-road truck driver, to take off work to help care for her. She died on the 22nd of September, 2007. The following month Social Security went into their joint checking account and took out the September payment, because she died before the end of the month. I have no idea how these heartless sons-a-bitches that work for Social Security can even sleep at night.
MY SOCIAL SECURITY PLAN
There are three groups to deals with:
Those already on Social Security or those that will be on it in the very near future.
Those that will be on it within the next 10 years or so.
Those who will be needing to look toward a different retirement program.
My program can be loosely be described as an "assisted living community" run by a civilian version of the military.
The main focus of this program is to get people out of debt by the time they retire and so they can own their own home. We will need to provide an apartment complex for those who don't own a home.
With the housing needs covered, we then focus on food, medical, quality of life. Currently we have EMS, fire and law enforcement departments in every community. If you come home an a light is on law enforcement will check out your house for free. If your cat is up a tree, the fire department will get it down, but if you are elderly and need a ride to the grocery store, someone to shovel your sidewalk, help with your laundry or to simply cook a meal, you need to pay them out of your $300 - $700 you get from Social Security.
This is the assisted living part. This would be covered with a Federal Civil Service program similar to the military for those who want to serve their country, but either are not qualified or don't want to go into the military. Each community would have teams made up of First Responders, EMTs, Paramedics, Nurses, and Physicians' Assistants. The First Responders would be like the patrol officers. They respond to requests for assistance, which could be anything from taking someone to the grocery store to helping them set up their medication.
This gets them in the homes to assess the living conditions on a regular basis. If someone is ill or injured an EMT or Paramedic is requested for evaluation. If it a medical emergency they transport the patient to the hospital. If it appears to simply be the bug of the week, the Physicians' Assistant (PA) would be requested. The PA could evaluate the patient and prescribe medication. The last thing most people want to do when they are sick is go to a doctor's office. Appointments are hard to get and there is usually a long wait. This brings back the old house call system.
People interested in this program would still go to a basic training, but this basic training is for emergency medical services training and standardization of care. Upon completion of basic training, they would be trained as First Responders, Entry-level Firefighters, Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) and in emergency management, Incident Command, elderly care, cooking, etc.
Their pay scale would be the same as in the military. E-1, E-2, etc. Beside a pay scale equal to the military, they would received one college credit pay for, for each month they serve. They could either take courses while serving or build them up for after there commitment it up. Additional training would be required for each promotion. For example they would need
Another advantage of this is that in the event of a Katrina type event, we could pull a couple people from each community to respond to the National emergency.
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