Last week, my wife and I visited her elderly, lifelong severely handicapped brother in the nursing home.  He was watching Fox News, and, during yet another on-air panel discussion of the Democrat debacle that passed for debates a few nights earlier, we listened to another discussion of the incredibly crazy call by all of the Democrat pretenders to the presidency for free health care for illegals.  That reminded me of what we faced when we moved her brother here from New Mexico two years ago: the possibility of having to privately pay for his nursing home care were he not approved for Medicaid in this state.  The cost we were quoted at the time was $6,000 per month, a figure far beyond our means to provide.  That cost quite simply would have eventually bankrupted us, depriving this elderly couple of our own hard-earned and far from extravagant retirement, forcing us out of our home, rendering us unable to ever pay for our own nursing home care should it become necessary.

Sunday, Tom Perez, hard-left Democrat apparatchik and Kool-Aid-concocting commissar of the Democratic National Committee, doubled down on the dumbness, defending these silly socialist stumpers and their insanity.  His mindless defiance inspired me to do some research to confirm my suspicions that such nursing home costs, or long-term care, were having a detrimental effect on Americans in my age group.  Unfortunately, what data are out there are contradictory when it comes to statistics, but what is undeniable is the trend: bankruptcies among elderly citizens are up sharply, increasing every year, and medical expenses are generally agreed to be the most frequent contributory factor.

While I was unable to find breakdowns of specific types of medical expenses leading to bankruptcy, it stands to reason that nursing home costs have to be a prime culprit simply because they are not covered by Medicare, except for brief recuperative periods following hospital stays, while private insurance for long-term care is prohibitively expensive, with limited coverage.  Therefore, the only assistance an elderly couple can hope for with this enormous expense is Medicaid, and in order to qualify, they must have a relatively low income and resort to near self-impoverishment by spending down their life savings to a low, state-approved maximum.  Doing this may render them incapable of paying other large medical bills, resulting in bankruptcy.

So, you Democrats who want to provide free health care to folks who have never paid in a dime for Medicare or any other American tax program, why don't you first find ways to take care of these U.S. citizens, who, after living long, productive, responsible, tax-paying, Medicare-contributing lives, are required by the infirmities of old age to impoverish, even bankrupt, themselves or their spouses to get the residential nursing care they require?  They haven't broken any federal laws to qualify for your generosity like those illegals you've pledged to provide care for.  If you socialist schemers value hordes of overweight, iPhone-flaunting, foreign flag–waving Guatemalans, Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Mexicans more than you do your own citizens, don't be surprised if those elderly citizens, voters who tend to vote in every election, don't share your silly, ding-a-ling Democrat delirium come November 2020.