Posted by Holly at October 17th, 2008

Now, really, this is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of – raiding Medicare to pay for an ill-conceived health care plan in the first place. I hope John McCain keeps touting this idea because, if he even needed any help, this has got to be the one thing that will guarantee he stays our of the While House.

All those pundits who talk about the long-term….don’t worry, everything will be fine in the long-term….I’ve been hearing them since the 1970s when the market tanked and my now late husband inherited the last of an estate against which he had financed his first house. His inheritance was guaranteed, just not the amount so, when the market plummeted, he had just enough left to pay back the lender and not enough for capital gains taxes. I can’t tell you what a nightmare that was for me when he died, seven years later.

But, not to worry, everything would be alright in about 10 years when it was the long-term. Okay, so by the time the next long-term rolled around it was the 80s and, well, we know what happened then. Oh, and then there was the dot-com era of 2000 that became dot-don’t. All the while, I was starting to worry, not about my long-term – I had given up on having one a long time ago – but about my mother’s. My parents raised us as well as they could and we had everything we needed and a lot of what we wanted. We, and they, assumed they would be okay well into their retirement. But they aren’t. Or, at least, my mother who is the only one left is not. Her long-term is terrible, frankly. And I am paying for it so that makes my present long-term scary and my future long-term iffy if not doubtful. Mine improved significantly, for a moment, when I remarried in 2006. Now my husband’s hard work, rewarded in his retirement portfolio, is going with the wind just like everyone else’s.

And now John McCain wants to take what little my mother has left to take care of her medical needs and steal from it? Is he out of his mind? Shame on you, John McCain.