Ok, myself and many of my friends who now qualify for medicare are paying about $135 per month for our benefits.  I have an extra insurance policy (whole-health) that's $102 per month. I have a Humana Rx plan that's about $16 per month. I have a life insurance policy (just a small one to help with funeral costs) and that's $18 per month for another year and then goes up to $26 per year and increases my benefit to $3,000.  Nevertheless, with what little I get from Social Security each month, all of this stuff comes out and it adds up fast, taking a big chunk of my measly less than $500 per month SS check.  All the years I provided day care I was not allowed to claim it so it was not credited to my take-home money from SS when I finally retired.  Imagine that.  We didn't realize I wasn't going to be reimbursed (our taxes every year sure didn't reflect things that way) for all those years or I would have done things much differently (like gone to a CPA with my end-of-year books). 

It's neither here nor there, but nevertheless, I keep hearing on TV ads (constantly if I'm not watching the upper channels like the Westerns channel, etc, or playing my own DVD's) that you are supposed to call some number to see about getting FREE dental stuff, and FREE eye care, home-delivered meals and yada yada - FREE FREE FREE seems to be their favorite word.  By God I'm not getting a damned thing free, I can tell you that, but I'm not about to call in to those numbers given either because then they REEEEEALLY have you on their radar.  The less snooping I have to worry about, the better.

But it pisses me off that everything seems to be FREE these days except for people like me, who have basically nothing to begin with.  WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT???

Can anyone explain it to me?  C'mon I know some of my readers certainly must know the answers to this, so just register and post for God's sake.  I don't bite, I promise!