It is Sunday, October 26 and there are just 6 days until I officially join the Medicare ranks.  Today we remember the birthdays of Desiderius Erasmus, Mahalia Jackson and Pat Sajack.  On this day in 1863 the worldwide Red Cross was organized in Geneva, in 1941 US savings bonds went on sale and in 1970 the “Doonesbury” comic strip debuted in 28 papers.  In Austria, it is National Day, in Benin and Rwanda it is Armed Forces Day and in New Zealand tomorrow will be Labour Day.

I would like to take some time to address the momentous occasion I mentioned earlier.  On November 1, I will officially be on Medicare.  So, what is Medicare?  In 1965, under the leadership of President Johnson, Congress created Medicare under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to provide health insurance to people age 65 and older, regardless of income or medical history. Before Medicare's creation, approximately 65% of those over 65 had health insurance, with coverage often unavailable or unaffordable to the rest, because older adults paid more than three times as much for health insurance as younger people. Medicare spurred the racial integration of thousands of waiting rooms, hospital floors, and physician practices by making payments to health care providers conditional on desegregation.

 Medicare has been in operation for well over 45 years and, during that time, has undergone several changes. Since 1965, the provisions of Medicare have expanded to include benefits for speech, physical, and chiropractic therapy in 1972. Medicare added the option of payments to health maintenance organizations in the 1980s. Over the years, Congress expanded Medicare eligibility to younger people who have permanent disabilities and receive Social Security Disability Insurance payments and those who have end-stage renal disease. The association with HMOs begun in the 1980s was formalized under President Clinton in 1997. In 2003, under President George W. Bush, a Medicare program for covering almost all drugs was passed (and went into effect in 2006).

Since the creation of Medicare, science and medicine have advanced, and life expectancy has increased as well. The fact that people are living longer necessitates more services for later stages in life. Thus in 1982, the government added hospice benefits to aid the elderly on a temporary basis. Two years later in 1984, hospice became a permanent benefit.

Part A is largely funded by revenue from a 2.9 percent payroll tax levied on employers and workers (each pay 1.45 percent).  Until December 31, 1993, the law provided a maximum amount of compensation on which the Medicare tax could be imposed each year, in the same way that the Social Security tax works in the United States.  Beginning in 2013, the 2.9% Part A tax continues to apply to the first $200,000 of income for individuals or $250,000 for couples filing jointly and rose to 3.8% on income in excess of those amounts to help partially fund the subsidies included in PPACA.

In 2011, Medicare spending accounted for about 15 percent of the federal budget, and this share is projected to increase to over 17 percent by 2020.  The retirement of the Baby Boom generation—which by 2030 is projected to increase enrollment from 48 million to more than 80 million as the number of workers per enrollee declines from 3.7 to 2.4—and rising overall health care costs pose substantial financial challenges to the program. Medicare spending is projected to increase to just over $1 trillion by 2022. Baby-boomers health is also an important factor: twenty percent have five or more chronic conditions which will further add to the future cost of health care.

So there you have the short version of what Medicare is all about.  I hope you found it informative and will still remember it when you turn 65.

And now for something completely different.  This past week the lovely Elaine and I had a chance to introduce a young man to our little slice of the US.  He is from Iowa and had never flown before.  To add to the excitement(?) of flying for the first time, his first flight was on a rather small plane out of Burlington, Iowa.  He was traveling with our good friend Paul, who has made this trip a number of times and to him it was just another trip.  To someone who had never broken the bonds of earth and been hurtled into the sky in a machine that defied gravity, this was an amazing journey.  Brett was amazed by the trip and seeing the New York skyline as they came in to land at Newark airport.

The next day, we all traveled into New York City.  We went by way of the Lincoln Tunnel which he found very interesting.  We showed him the line in the tunnel that let us know when we were in New York.  We drove through the city and made our way to the Freedom Tower.  After parking the car we walked to the tower itself and went to the 911 Museum.  Brett was not the only one overcome by this exhibit.  It was very emotional to see the pictures and videos.  It was incredible to see the beams of steel bent into a horseshoe shape and to realize the destruction that took place that day.  It is one thing to have watched the news and experienced the drama as it unfolded – we could see the smoke from our front walk.  It was something entirely different to be in this place and feel the devastation.

From there, we went to the Empire State Building.  We went to the 86^th floor observatory and marveled at the amazing view.  It was fun to watch and listen to someone who had never experienced this type of thing.  He was amazed at the sheer scope of the view from all sides and the perspective it gave to seeing New York.  Some of the other highlights of his trip included seeing Liberty State Park, Radio City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center and going to see “Wicked” on Broadway.

We topped the trip off by taking him down the shore to Seaside Heights.  He had never seen an ocean before and we were able to go down on the beach and walk for a bit.  While most of the stands on the boardwalk were closed, he was able to get a sense of what it was like.  Fortunately, one stand was open and he was able to have a slice of pizza, standing on the boardwalk, watching the ocean.  I am sure it is a trip he will not forget soon.

This week our fact tells us that Colgate faced big obstacles marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking countries.  Colgate translates into the command “Go hang yourself.”  Imagine the advertising slogan, in Spanish, “Teeth not clean and white?  Try Colgate.”

Today is Sunday, October 19.  There are only 39 days until the start of the Christmas Music Season.  Today we remember the birthdays of John McLoughlin, Gunnar Nordahl and Jennifer Holiday.  On this day in 615 St. Deusdedrit I began his reign as Catholic Pope, in 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman in the US to receive a medical degree and in 1988 the Senate passed a bill curbing ads during children’s TV shows.  It is Independence Day in Mauritania, Yorktown Day in Virginia and tomorrow is Alaska Day in Alaska (as if you hadn’t already worked that out).

I thought the bit about curbing ads on children’s TV was interesting.  Because of my grandsons, I have watched a fair amount of children’s TV and never noticed much of a curb on ads.  I decided to look into this and see what the story was.

The bill would have limited advertising during children's programming to 10.5 minutes an hour on weekends, and 12 minutes an hour on weekdays.  Such limitations had existed under longstanding Federal Communications Commission rules until 1984, when the commission removed them.  The House of Representatives passed the measure, 328 to 78, on June 8, and the Senate gave its approval Oct. 19 by unrecorded voice vote that could have been blocked if only one Senator had opposed it.

President Reagan, who exercised a pocket veto late Saturday, said he disapproved of the bill because it was an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of expression. Supporters of the measure called the veto a disservice to children and said the legislation would be reintroduced the following year.

''This bill simply cannot be reconciled with the freedom of expression secured by our Constitution,'' the president said in announcing that he had used the pocket veto to kill the legislation.

Peggy Charren, president of Action for Children's Television, said that the assertion that the bill was unconstitutional was ''a double-speak excuse.'' The legislation, she said, simply furthered the mandate of the Communications Act that every station serve the public interest. Current children's television, she said, does not do that.

There is a lot more information available and if you are interested you can Google “1988 Bill Improving Children’s TV.”  I will not go into my feelings on this except to say that based on some of what I have seen disguised as children’s TV, I would rather watch the commercials.

I would like to take another swipe at a group of people I have talked about before – pedestrians.  I really think that something needs to be done about these people.  You know the ones I’m talking about, the people who are walking along the sidewalk and decide that they want to cross the street.  Rather than walk the extra 10 feet to the traffic light and crosswalk, they just come out between two cars and start to cross.  They don’t even look to see if cars are coming, they just go.  Why?  Because they believe that they have the right of way and can cross whenever and wherever they wish.

Another type of idiot, I mean pedestrian, is the one who is walking down the street and decides to cross, but instead of going straight across the street, takes a diagonal path, putting him or her in the street, and in your way, even longer.  I know I have said this before, but I am going to repeat it.  You may have the right of way because you are a pedestrian, but when you are lying in the hospital with broken bones and damaged organs, the right of way is not going to make you better.  Of course, I always feel that these people have the word lawsuit floating around in the back of their mind, just in case the right of way doesn’t work for them.

The worst ones are the people who walk in parking lots.  These people are in a space filled with cars.  They have just driven through the lot to find a place to park.  What makes them suddenly think that it is okay to walk along four abreast?  Doesn’t it occur to them that other people are driving around doing the same thing they just did?  Are people really that oblivious?  Yes, they are!  OMG!  Yes they are!!

Recently, the lovely Elaine and I were at a mall.  We had completed the tasks we had set for ourselves and were preparing to leave.  I was backing out of the parking space, when all of a sudden, the alarm that lets me know something is behind me when I am backing up, starts to beep.  I look and two people have decided that they could not wait the 10 to 15 seconds it would have taken for me to back out of the space, so they decided to walk around me.  Of course they might not have seen me.  I was only driving a black SUV, it was light out, my back-up lights were lit and my car was moving (insert your own annoying buzzer sound here).  Wrong!  They saw me, but they were in a hurry and they had the right of way, after all.  Having just come out of the mall, I could not think of a store that was running a sale so spectacular that it was worth risking being run over to get to.

I watch this kind of behavior all the time and I am constantly amazed at how dumb people can be.  One more quick discussion about people in parking lots.  I watch them make five or six attempts at backing into a parking space.  When I pull into a lot I go in head first.  When I leave, I back out, usually in one move and leave.  I once asked a person why he backed into the space and he said it was because he didn’t like backing up.  This way he could just pull out.  I just looked at him. It didn’t even occur to him that backing up was how he got in the space in the first place.  I could not come up with a response.  This guy and the others all suffer from an affliction I call “anal-cranial inversion” (think about it).

This week our fact tells us that conception occurs most in the month of December.  Guys, it would be easier and cheaper, in the long run, to just get her a pair of earrings or a bracelet for Christmas.

It is Sunday, October 12 and there are only 74 days until Christmas.  Get those cookie trays and recipes ready, we’ll be baking before you know it.  Today we remember the birthdays of Elmer Sperry, Ralph Vaughn Williams and Luciano Pavarotti.  On this day in 1492 Columbus arrived in the Bahamas, in 1918 the iron lung was first used, at Boston’s Children Hospital and in 1977 psychic Romark attempted to drive blindfolded and smashed into a police van.  In Spain it is National Day, in Western Samoa it is White Sunday and in the US it is the official Columbus Day.

I know I have discussed this holiday in the past.  I have talked about how we honor a man who went off on a journey, did not end up where he was headed, did not bring back what he was supposed to, then went back to the wrong place and still did not come back with what he was looking for.  I have disparaged Columbus for not getting directions and for not achieving the goals he set out to do.  The bottom line is that he at least did something.  He went off on a trip that was dangerous – hey he could have sailed off the end of the earth!  Maybe he didn’t discover the Indies and bring back spices and other treasures, but he did find the Bahamas and North America.

So my question is why are we taking his holiday away?  Several cities have decided that they are changing the holiday to Indigenous Peoples Day.  The Portland, Oregon school board member who sponsored the bill there said that Portland Public Schools’ new Indigenous Peoples Day isn’t meant to replace Columbus Day, but to supplement it.  I guess that is why they changed the name and no longer recognize Columbus as part of the holiday.  If they really want to honor indigenous people, why not create a whole new holiday for them?  The other thing I find interesting is that nowhere does anyone actually say who the indigenous people are.  This seems to me to be a nebulous term used to include anybody who feels they are being ignored.  By the way, was any thought given to the insult to Italian people by dumping their holiday?

I understand wanting to create more awareness for people who have not been well-represented in the past.  I also understand the need to give them recognition.  What I do not understand is how taking someone else’s holiday will give them that recognition.  It seems like we are saying that we are simply changing the name of a holiday because we don’t want to go out of our way to create something meaningful.  I have a feeling that all it will really create is animosity.

Now that I have vented on that issue, let me mention a few other things that have come up recently.  I am not sure if I have talked about this before, so I will mention it, maybe again.  Recently we were out on the parkway and I saw a sign that said – “No Litter $200 Fine.”  If you wanted to be technical, this sign tells me that there is a fine if I do not litter.  Tell me “$200 fine for Littering” or simply “No Littering” but that first sign invites misinterpretation by people like me.

Recently, the lovely Elaine saw a sign that said “Huge Children Sale” posted on a road we were travelling.  The question then became were they selling obese kids or did they have a lot of kids to sell?  I really think that some thought should be given when signs like this are being created.  What happens when some poor couple who can’t start a family sees that sign?  “Hell, Ethel, I don’t care if the kid is fat.  We should at least go take a look.”  Or, “They must have a ton of kids there Jubal.  We should go take a look.  I’m sure we can find one we like.”  Again, signs like this are just asking to be misinterpreted.

Moving on, I was recently looking at airfares for a trip we are planning.  Just for fun, I looked at the first class cost and the economy cost.  The first class cost was $367 more than economy.  I have a hard time figuring out what they could possibly be offering in first class that is worth $367.  Maybe they get food, but based on what I have seen; airline food is not worth $3.67, let alone over $300.  Maybe the seats are a little wider, but when the person in front of you decides to recline their seat, it is just a wider seat back that is in your lap.  The other thing to consider is you will be paying $367 to be the first people to hit the ground if the plane crashes.  Makes you wonder if it’s worth it.  We have decided it is not.

This week our fact tells us that CBS’s “60 Minutes” is the only TV show without a theme song.  I thought about that and feel that they should have a theme song.  I have tried to come up with something.  The tune would be to the “Love Boat” theme since they are not using it.

News, exciting and new, in-depth and interesting too.                                                  

Stories that will create thought, about battles that are being fought.

60 Minutes.  We are on Sunday night.  You should watch so you get the news right.

They cover all sorts of stuff, ISIS, cyber crime, China and if that’s not enough –

They also talk about cancer drug cost and they ask if Obama is lost.

60 Minutes.  We are on Sunday night. You should watch so you get the news right.

60 Minutes, 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes!

Today is Sunday, October 5 – I know, October already.  It seems like only last week that we were exclaiming surprise that it was September.  There are only 53 days until the Christmas music season starts.  The lovely Elaine does allow Christmas music on my birthday, but only for that day.  The official season starts 16 days after my birthday this year.  Speaking of birthdays, today we remember Chester A. Arthur, Allen Ludden and Ken Noda.  On this day in 1582 the Gregorian calendar was introduced in Italy and other Catholic countries, in 1877 Chief Joseph surrendered, ending the Nez Perce War and in 1990 a Cincinnati jury acquitted the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center of obscenity charges for displaying Robert Mapplethorpe’s The Perfect Moment exhibition.  It is Independence Day in Bulgaria, Sports Day in Lesotho and Grandparents Day in Massachusetts.  I thought they celebrated that day earlier this year, but maybe they just forgot they had.

We attended a wedding this past week and I have to say that things have changed since the lovely Elaine and I got married.  She did her own makeup and hair and nails and she was at home when she did it.  The bridesmaids got dressed and then came to her house to be picked up by the limo.  Nowadays, everything has been raised to a much higher level.  All the women involved in the wedding meet in a hotel room where a makeup person comes and does the makeup, a hair person comes to make sure the hair is done properly and the nails are done by a specialist.

Weddings are so obviously about the women.  The men show up, get dressed and go to the church.  No specialists come in to make sure that the men have clean underwear, have “dressed” in the proper direction and have zipped their trousers.  I am guessing that no one has checked to be sure their hair was done or that they had put on socks.  It is just assumed that they know how to do this stuff, they do it and they show up for the ceremony.  Apparently, they don’t become stupid until after the wedding.

Where the show really starts is at the reception.  We showed up at the catering hall early.  The route we would normally have taken was blocked because of road work.  We ended up having to take a rather round-about route that required taking several side streets that were unfamiliar.  This was a cause for major distress for some of the other drivers.  They came to the road they wanted and were confronted by signs saying they could not go where they wanted to.  They were given the option of going in certain directions, but not the one they intended to use.  So, instead of going one of the other ways, they sat there and stared as if by doing so the barricade would magically disappear and they could continue on their way.  By the way, it didn’t … but I digress.

Because of the convoluted route, we allowed for extra time.  As it turned out we did not need it and, as I said, we arrived early.  Fortunately, we were not alone.  We walked into the cavernous lobby and were greeted by a person handing out champagne.  Not wanting to appear impolite, we accepted a glass.  As we looked around, we met up with several people we knew and stood around chatting with them.  I thought it interesting that they provided beverages for everyone, but not a single place to sit.  I guess they didn’t want you to get comfortable and end up missing the cocktail hour.

The cocktail hour was interesting.  They provided tables and chairs for everyone and the food stations were located throughout the room.  The group at our table went in various directions, doing recon on what was located where.  We loaded up our plates and came back to report our findings to the group.  This was a great way to handle it because it saved time looking for the stuff you liked and avoiding the stuff you didn’t want – like the various mushroom dishes(right Pat?).  We ate, drank and chatted until it was time to travel to the big room for the evening’s festivities and food.

Let me just say that when you have a room as big as this one was, you need to have some kind of material hanging on the walls to absorb some of the sound.  You also need to explain to the band that this is not their concert, it is a wedding reception and they need to remember that the focus should be on the bridal couple.  As an example, the maitre’ d had the band stop playing when it was time to cut the cake.  The band stopped briefly and then launched into music again while the ceremony was going on.  If you are going to provide music during this, it should be quiet, background music allowing everyone to focus on the bride and groom.  You do not have to sing the “Bride Cuts the Cake”, but somehow “Luck Be A Lady Tonight” just did not seem to fit with what was going on.

As I said before, the room was not great as far as the sound was concerned.  The band was so loud that it was difficult to talk.  One of the people at our table suggested we would be better off texting each other.  When the band played, if you recognized the song, you could sort of make out the words.  There were songs I did not know and what I heard was – “Nnnh gwen mog to jask ohh.  Boshk in plek to berg ves bren I know!”  All this done with music so loud that it could probably be heard out on the road.

I know you are probably thinking that I am complaining simply because I am old.  My son always says that if it is too loud, you are too old.  In this case – NO!  I should not have trouble hearing when I am talking to myself.  There were people much younger than I with their fingers in their ears.  Sitting next to me was a young lady who is in her twenties and she was complaining , too.  Keep in mind that this is a person in the National Guard, who flies helicopters, so she knows what loud noise is.

Don’t get me wrong.  Overall it was a great wedding, the food was good, the people at our table were great and we had a good time.  The wedding was for the daughter of very good friends of ours and we were pleased to be included. 

This week our fact tells us that chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.  Just don’t get caught doing it in Singapore where chewing gum is outlawed.

Just one more quick request – I continue to notice that there are people accessing this blog in other countries.  I would really love to know how you happened to come across the blog.  Please go into the comment section and let me know.  Thank you.