take care of them

TAKE CARE OF THEM

my historian brother has these isms or sayings
one is
take care of your tools

i say
take care of your teachers

now im a little biased here
since
my three sisters were teachers
my brother was a teacher
my sisterinlaws two of them were teachers
my brotherinlaw was a teacher
my wife she was a teacher
both parents at one time were teachers

so
i have teachers in my family
it must be in my dna

as my wife she worked as a teacher
and
as she neared retirement
as she retired
i saw first hand how poorly texas funds
education
teacher salaries
teacher benefits
even worse teacher retriement
even worse teacher retirement insurance

now
its not just texas
its other states too
but i know texas personally

texas seems like a rich state with all that oil and gas
they have no income tax
yet
they ranked near the bottom of the pile in a lot of things
like health care
for teachers pay they are in the middle
they should be at the top though

one relative retired 18 years ago with a monthly retirement
of lets just say $1,000 a month
now
18 years later
she still draws a check for $1,000
inflation passed this benefit by several years ago

as she ages
her monthly retirement check will be worth less and less

now she is lucky though since she retired before the law
was passed preventing teachers from drawing full social
security even though they and their spouses paid into it for
years

now using my wife she as an example
she had paid into social security for 18 years
she enter teaching at 47
i paid for years also many of those were max years

so lets say i qualified for $30,000 a year
she would qualify for around $15,000 a year based on mine
and around $10,0000 based on hers
she will get around $3,000
when i die she should get around $30,000 a year
instead she will get around $15,000 a year when i die

i wonder where all that money we paid in for social securty
went
that almost $300,00+ of benefits we paid for with our taxes
i guess someone else gets it

lucky for us were in the financial situation where we could
afford to put back into our 403 b to compensate for that money
few teachers can afford to do this

then there is the insurance thing
the health insurance thing

when my wife reached medicare age
she would be forced into a medicare advantage plan
which if you live in austin texas is a good plan
sometimes maybe
if you live elsewhere it may not be a good plan
usually its not
i call them medicare disadvantage plans
if you dont understand your plan you might not know if its
good or not

living here in santa barbara it was a lousy plan
so
we stopped the medicare disadvantage plan
added the medicare supplement f
added the medicare drug plan

we pay a monthly amount for each
when i go to the doctor theres no copay or deductible since i chose the
better plan that covers those
when we go to the pharmacy we pay little for our drugs
eg i just got a 90 day supply of three meds for $4.42
my wife she paid $0 for her three meds

these two plans cost her around $145 a month plus the cost of her
medicare

so the teachers who retire pay
for their medicare disadvantage plan when they pay for their medicare
they pay a $500 deductible a $3500 out of pocket max and copays for
almost everything some set some 5%
there are copays for drugs
for my $4.42 copay a texas teacher would pay $100 for the same 90 day prescription

we have no copays or deductibles on our health care

once my wife she chose this method to drop the teacher retirement
she is not allowed to return
i think she can live with that

so choosing what to do for a retired teacher is based on how good
the teacher retirement plan is where you live
and
if your providers and hospitals stay on the plan
this can change annually
eg here there were only a few providers like 4 on the plan

we chose to exit the teacher retirement plan health insurance
we feel ok with it

we know that its doubtful that the texas legislature will make
things better

im sorry
but sometimes we have to pay more taxes to get better services
to take care of those whom we need and should be taking care of
like
babies
pregnant moms
womens healthcare
teachers
education
roads and other infrastructure

not football teams or such things

take care of your teachers

the organicgreen doctor