We lost a real legend this week, Dick Dale, and his medical story was tragic:
Dick Dale… invented surf music in the 1950’s. Not the ’60’s as is commonly believed. He was given the title “King of the Surf Guitar” by his fellow surfers with whom he surfed with from sun-up to sun-down. He met Leo Fender the guitar and amplifier Guru and Leo asked Dale to play his newly creation, the Fender Stratocaster Electric Guitar. The minute Dale picked up the guitar, Leo Fender broke into uncontrolled laughter and disbelief, he was watching Dale play a right handed guitar upside down and backwards, Dale was playing a right handed guitar left handed and changing the chords in his head then transposing the chords to his hands to create a sound never heard before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Dale
Here is Dick playing at the Fiesta Del Sol in Solana Beach in 2011:
Love Dick Dale! And yes, his medical reasons for continuing to tour into his 80’s while sick are tragic.
Why is our medical coverage tied to our jobs? A quirk of history. Prior to WWII, health insurance was not provided by employers. With the onset of WWII, so many went into the service that employers were desperate for employees, but, wage and price controls prevented them from attracting employees by offering much higher wages than their competitors. Enter employer provided health care coverage! It was a way for them to essentially poach employees from other firms by offering this benefit. Soon, of course, everyone was doing it.
So here we are today 75+ years on and that’s still our healthcare system. Our spending is the highest per capita on a worldwide basis, yet our outcomes are way, way down the list.
Dick Dale has been Medicare eligible for 16 years. Medicare is so much less expensive than available insurance for those older persons who are older, but less than 65 years old. If his MAGI for married & joint 2019 was less than or equal than $170,000, his premium was $135.50 monthly. Add to this part D coverage at about $30 monthly, plus Medigap coverage, which is age rated. I have 2 relatives, age 87 and age 90, both of whose Medigap plan F policies (no deductible PPO “gold standard” coverage) is $287 and $332 per month, respectively. Let me repeat – no out of pocket! Contrast that to my age rated – at 62 years old – Kaiser Bronze HDHP HMO plan, with monthly premium of $720.42, and 2019 out-of-pocket of $6550. IMO, Medicare is a bargain compared to my present situation. There is more to this story than Dick Dale’s statement.
News to me….and probably Dick too! Thanks no_techie.
Kind of what I was saying. Your medical care in this country is tied to your employer unless you’re over 65. You’re 62 and paying out of pocket. I’d retire now were it not for having to pony up a very large annual outlay for insurance. So, one less job this boomer frees up until he’s 65. Whatever….