Sometimes people will write to me complaining that the government, specifically the Social Security Administration, has messed them up and cheated them out of benefits they might have been due. But many times, the fault (to trivialize a famous line from Shakespeare’s play, “Julius Caesar”) is not in our government, but in ourselves. Here are some examples of what I mean.
Q: When I was 65, I retired and took the free Part A Medicare. But I didn’t want to spend all that money the government was gouging us to take the Part B. However, five years later when I was 70, I decided I needed the Part B, so I took it and started paying a penalty on top of my regular monthly premium. I’m now almost 80 and I’m still paying the penalty. This just proves my theory that the government is made up of a bunch of crooks who are just out to gouge all of us senior citizens!…