The American Conscience and Abuse of the Elderly
Feb 22, 2011
Why does our government seem to have so much disdain for our senior citizens? Some seventy five years ago a completely different U. S. government proposed and implemented an investment program which it called the Social Security System. The idea was to have citizens invest in a retirement program which would pay them pensions in their retirement years. The proposed system had two advantages. First, with millions of citizens investing in it, it would be able to accumulate substantial sums of money before it would have to gradually pay out pension funds to most of its investors. Second, with even minimal earnings on the investments and deceased members forfeiting benefits, the Social Security Fund could function for many years without fear of insolvency. Somewhere along the line, the government changed. Fatally attracted by a series of massive increases in Social Security contributions, politicians, acting like racketeers, decided to embezzle the Social Security funds and spend them on frivolous wars and political favors. Carpetbagger friends and privateers were sent to the war torn countries to usurp the duties of competent U.S. military personnel at ten times the military’s cost. Favorite companies of Administration officials were chosen to replace foreign entities who had proven they could be far more productive than their bogus replacements.[1] The wars and the Administration’s corrupt spending habits were not “officially” funded by the federal government. Instead, they were funded by the stolen contributions of unsuspecting pensioners, as hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars were systematically looted from the “Social Security Fund.”
Thus was the largest investment scam in the history of mankind carried out under the watchful eyes of both Republican and Democratic House and Senate members. Despite “vigilant” surveillance by the U.S. Supreme Court, the American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, hundreds of legal “scholars,” AARP and other questionable organizations, the entire surplus accumulated over nine years was systematically stolen from the Social Security Fund. Most importantly, there is noone who can claim that the perpetrators had ever intended that the money would be repaid to the people who had been duped into contributing to the scam. It is doubtful that there has ever been a more obvious and deliberate violation of RICO Act Statutes in this country. [2] The very fact that employers are forced to contribute to the fund under threat of punishment simply adds extortion to the charges. In the “confidence game” the “Social Security Scam” is known as “Robbing Peter To Pay Paul.” [3]
Republicans, apparently invigorated by their phenomenally successful foray into big time racketeering, did not waste time exulting in their unprecedented exploitation of the “Social Security Scam.” Envious over the billions of dollars in political payments amassed by Democratic contributors, they decided to take advantage of the “Medicare Scam” as well. Before “Part D” of Medicare, only Democratic supporters were permitted to feed at the Medicare trough. Durable goods providers could rely on payments of up to four times retail prices, while oxygen suppliers could collect as much as three times the price charged by legitimate retailers. Medical laboratories could not only depend on prices 4-10 times that charged to HMO’s, but could depend on only mild slaps on the wrist for the industry’s multi billion dollars in double billing.[4] Not to be outdone, Republican Congressmen Tom Delay and Billy Tauzin, well known in Texas for “creative” redistricting, but inadequate to author their own “drug bill,” turned to PhRMA, the pharmaceutical lobby. The result was a bill that would warm the cockles of every politically dishonest judge on the Supreme Court, every pharmaceutical company and pharmacy. Medicare’s victims would be charged at least two times the price charged to patients at the V.A. or the price determined by competitive bidding employed by the military. Only Medicare Seniors, deprived of their right to “equal protection,” “due process,” their dignity and their hard earned money and anything else falsely promised in the 14th Amendment[5] were not allowed to use their 43 million members to negotiate drug prices. As a reward, Mr. Tauzin was paid millions of dollars to become president of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical lobby, while poor Mr. Delay, apparently, had to resort to more petty means to obtain illicit payments for which he was later jailed.[6]
So, where is the ACLU, fearless protectors of Constitutional rights? Have they read only one amendment to the Constitution, the First? What about the 14th? Have they been so busy helping the Supreme Court miraculously turn speech into money (could they do it for me?) that they have forgotten about the most helpless members of our society, the elderly on fixed incomes? Where are the attorneys? Where are the physicians? Where is the Bar Association? The AMA? The AOA? Sadly, physician organizations are politically impotent compared to attorney organizations. Political activists, attorneys spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on political contributions.[7] They perform thousands of hours of pro bono services, but a pitifully few of them have read our Constitution since their days in law school as they will sadly admit. They claim to be “advocates of the people.” However, as members of the legal profession, like many other professionals, are forced to scavenge for their next dollar, as an organization they seem to be ignoring their role as advocates for their elderly neighbors.
The price of doing business in the legal ranks is the same as it is in medicine. Both are paid to help people. By their own choice attorneys have become intimately involved in virtually all phases of human life. With this intimacy and the welcome profits that it accrues, come responsibilities. Meanwhile, the Bar Association has become the only means left to our society to overcome the ever increasing audacity of political opportunists to rob and pillage our citizens. They represent this country’s only chance to restore equity and fairness to our judicial system. Politicians and judges that clearly violate the canons of ethics and of criminal conduct must be sanctioned. Legitimate sanctions by the Bar against attorneys who are elected officials or judges are taken quite seriously by voters and even House and Senate members. Even Supreme Court Justices might behave more ethically under threat of censure or disbarment.
I believe that the Bar Association and all concerned citizens must band together and fight for the rights of senior citizens to fair treatment in a country in which their own government is their most serious abuser! With the help of the attorneys we need to ask of the Supreme Court that they uphold the right of seniors to demand the return of over two trillion stolen dollars to the Social Security Fund. We need to hold the Congress and federal government accountable for the intolerable waste and graft in Medicare easily exceeding 100 billion dollars per year. [8] If left to their own devices, many Republicans would slash benefits to seniors in both Social Security and Medicare instead of cutting graft. Senator Trent Lott and Congressman Bill Thomas, both loyal Republicans, tried to explain to Junior Bush that in order to privatize Social Security, the fund would have to be reimbursed by taxation; otherwise there would be nothing to invest. It appears that Bush never understood either of them, unfortunately, and now a whole new generation of Junior Bushes seems to have grown up with the same abject lack of understanding.
It may be unavoidable to increase the retirement age and to limit benefits to wealthy seniors, but it is unfair and unacceptable for the federal government to steal seniors’ money under false pretenses and arbitrarily give entitlements to arms dealers and corrupt corporations as well as the administration’s favorite carpetbagger friends. The logical and fair thing to do is to establish a surtax, a virtual “sin tax” on weapons specifically designed to kill people, arguably hand guns, but certainly automatic weapons, assault rifles, rocket launchers, tanks, rockets and the like. Such a “fair” tax could easily restore the seniors’ looted retirement funds. Besides the fact that most of the illicitly “borrowed” funds were spent on these munitions, it would scarcely hurt their sales. What’s more, what could be better than actually collecting tax money from drug lords, foreign and domestic terrorists, mobsters and dictators that these patriotic companies so happily service. All routine hunting rifles, shotguns, non-automatic hand guns and miscellaneous hunting weapons would be exempt, of course.
Lest the NRA leadership get their feathers ruffled, a word of advice. The vast majority of NRA members seem to be hunters and “protectors” of their families, rather than paranoid members of a corrupt and amoral munitions industry financially dependent on the need for one person to kill another. If they poll their members, they might be surprised to learn that they too cannot figure out why a civilized human being needs to carry an automatic weapon to a peaceful political gathering or a politician’s speech. What’s more, every member who is fortunate enough will become a senior someday.
Allen Finkelstein, D.O.
[1] (a) Exposed!: Post 9/11 Privatization & Conservative Failure (OurFuture.org), (b) Outsourcing War- Rise of Private Military Contractors (rense.com), (c) The shadow army (boston.com), (d) 180,000 Private Contractors Flood Iraq (USA Today)
[2] Federal and State RICO Act (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act of 1970) statutes outline the definitions of racketeering. A pattern of inducing people to pay into an investment scheme, especially an “employee” retirement fund, while stealing the investments, would constitute racketeering, (section 664) and accepting political donations as inducements to pay out the stolen funds (e.g. no bid contracts) violates section 1954 of the RICO Act. While most people could not rationally argue that our Congress and Senate are not Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations, some apologists contend that the Social Security System is not a retirement fund. Unfortunately, since the same federal legislators who added welfare and Medicare, Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance to the Social Security System, forgot to destroy the “retirement fund” first. As surely as Shakespeare said: “a rose is a rose is a rose,” a racketeer is a racketeer is a racketeer and the Social Security System is still a “retirement fund” among other things.
[3] While the “Social Security Scam” originally constituted a “voluntary” inducement to invest a percentage of one’s earnings, the employer’s portion is mandatory under fear of punishment. A pattern of extortion of this sort is clearly a RICO violation (section 1951). In his November 2, 2000 article, Social Security Surplus, Doug McIntosh called the Social Security scam a “Ponzi Scheme.” A Ponzi Scheme is an investment scam in which extraordinary returns are promised without any intention to pay the invested funds back to the investors. The Social Security System is actually a case of “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul,” because it promises to pay out at least some approximation of what was put into it. Both schemes are illegal of course.
[4] A few years ago, I purchased a motorized scooter for my 90 year old father for the 1100 dollar retail sticker price. We didn’t have time to wait for Medicare to approve the same scooter at their price of 4400 dollars. At the same time oxygen for three years, costing Medicare anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 dollars could be purchased from Walgreens for one third the price. Laboratory tests for our Medicare HMO currently run anywhere from one tenth to one fourth the price paid by the conventional Medicare program. Also references [2] and [3] of Solving the Healthcare Enigma II OpEdNews 2/19/11
[5] Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution
[6] Mr. Delay was convicted of money laundering in 2010, but is currently free from prison on bail, pending his appeal.
[8] Medicare Fraud: A $60 Billion Crime- 60 Minutes- CBS News 10/25/09, updated 9/2/10. “The Justice Department claims that Medicare fraud is now a $60 billion a year industry...” Added to this is at least $60-100 billion in “legal” fraud (deliberate overspending) the amount easily approaches at least a third of the Medicare budget.