Day 16-LA County Dept. of Public Health mandates indoor masking and OUTDOOR masking at large events
My Long Term Care and Disability Program that I paid into for the past 25 years was a Ponzi scheme and collapsed. My Long Term Care insurance is gone…
8/31/21. Tuesday.
6:30–7:00 - The plumber is coming today so I’m up early. Downstairs to greet the animal and she doesn’t understand what’s happening. I rub her tummy and coax her awake until she’s ready to go outside. We head for the door, she grabs her toy, and outside we go. I wait for her to go potty and we return inside: pieces of turkey burger for her; coffee for me. I go upstairs.
7:00 – 8:00 – Shower. Lotion. Covid-19 uniform. Light make-up.
8:00 – 9:00 – I wake up L. because I need to drop off the rental car at Enterprise and she’s my ride. Although we talked about this last night, L. is upset that I woke her so early this morning and will barely speak to me. I’m not sure how this is my fault – she’s the entire reason I reserved the rental car.
I return the car and L. drives us home. When we arrive, L. goes back to bed.
9:00-10:00 – I review the scores my students received yesterday on the Chapter Review quiz and then I email all students who completed their quiz in less than an hour. The instructions were to open the Chapter Review quiz at 2:30, when class starts, and keep it open until 5:35, when class ends. This way, I know they’re in class for the duration – 2:30-5:35. Unfortunately, several of the students completed the Chapter Review quiz between 8 and 10 minutes, so I send them stern emails, informing them that it appears they were NOT in class for the full 3 hours and that this might result in being dropped from the class.
L. and her co-worker leave for a cool vegan restaurant in Los Angeles. L. says we can pick up her car after she returns.
10:00-11:00 – I eat L.’s leftover Eggs Benedict from The Juncture and read Testament.
11:00 -11:30 – I rearrange the few items I have left in the garage and make sure the plumber has plenty of room to do his repairs.
11:30-1:30 – The plumber arrives. He fixes the drain in the master bathtub and the leaky faucet outside immediately.
The “expander” on top of the hot water heater gives him some trouble, though. Although this hot water heater was replaced a mere 3 or 4 years ago, the two pipes and the T-bar attaching the expander [blue balloon] to the water heater don’t even resemble pipes anymore. The above pieces are completely rusted to the point where the pipes are deteriorating and rust flakes are piling around the bottom of the water heater on a daily basis.
The plumber replaces the rotting pipes and T-bar with brass parts, but when he turns the water back on, the expander springs a leak and water starts shooting all over the garage so he has to tighten the fitting. Eventually, he successfully finishes the job and I’m out $400.
-I work on blog posts in the kitchen while the plumber works on the hot water heater.
1:30-2:30 - I have some of the ravioli L. made the other day for lunch and read a Money Diary.
2:30-3:30 – I go to Home Depot to buy a gallon of paint for the main wall in L.’s room. B. pulled the TV brace off the wall and the area behind where the TV used to be was never sufficiently painted so, ultimately, I need to paint this wall again. I think the other walls in her room only need a touch-up.
I’m still waiting for Home Depot to contact me regarding the door installation so I report to the “Doors” section still looking for the ever elusive “Vince.” Somebody is actually sitting at the desk today!!, but when I explain that I want to schedule an appointment for door installation, the guy says, “I’m just a vendor. I can’t help you.” Why are you sitting there if you’re unable to provide any customer service? The unidentified black male picks up the phone and asks “Stacey”, over the loudspeaker, to report to “Doors.” She calls him almost immediately and tells him to tell me to report to the Customer Service desk. Great.
I speak to Customer Service and advise that I would like to schedule a day/time for door installation, but Customer Service says “Doors” will call me. I know they won’t, but I take this opportunity to give them my new Iphone number anyway.
This trip was a waste, but at least I got the paint for L.’s room.
3:30-4:00 – I pick up two library books I ordered previously and drive home.
4:00-4:30 – L. returns from her vegan day with her co-worker. Trident is about to close so we quickly drive there, in MY car, so we can pick up HER car. L. gets out of the car, goes inside for the paperwork, and then walks to her car. One of the mechanics follows behind L. and gets inside the car. I’ve never seen this before and I’m immediately alarmed. I text L. to ask what’s going on, then follow behind them because I’m hinked up. Why is he in her car?
Eventually, we’re all back at the shop again and L. walks to my car with my rental car reimbursement check in hand. L. says the mechanic wanted to do a test drive with her in the car. Apparently, the sway bar [a part from the car’s suspension] broke and Trident repaired it, free of charge. The mechanic said sometimes the sway bar inadvertently breaks, but it had nothing to do with the suspension repair they performed last week. Uh-huh…sure. But at least we’re not charged for the repair.
4:30-5:00 – L. and I are finally in possession of our own vehicles, but she is running late for her online Art History class so quickly drives home. I’m right behind her and when I arrive I finally take the time to look at the reimbursement check only to discover that it’s made out to Enterprise, NOT me! I already paid Enterprise this morning which means I will have to go back to Trident and have them re-issue the check in my name. Will this car saga ever end?
5:00-6:00 – Tomorrow is the first day of class for my high schoolers and they still don’t have access to the Canvas shell. I have to deliver the course content to them via email so I send an email blast to the students advising them of tomorrow’s itinerary. I make sure course content is available and ready for them tomorrow.
6:00-6:30 – I take the dog for a walk and think about the terrible news I received the other day:
When I was 26 and my ex-husband was 29, we signed up for the Long Term Care and Disability Program through our state retirement agency, CalPERS [California Public Employees’ Retirement System]. For a small monthly [guaranteed frozen] fee, my ex and I would be entitled to $5500 per month of life-time, long-term care, in the event we needed it.
For example, let’s say one of us began suffering from dementia or Alzheimers. Our Long Term Care program would enable us to select a nursing home with a monthly cost of $5500 or less, forever…or at least until we died. Most nursing homes are disgusting, especially the cheap ones, but a monthly stipend of $5500 would allow for a nursing home stay at a top notch facility and, of course, we could supplement the stipend with our own money, maybe adding another $1000 to $2000 on top of the $5500. Conceivably, if it came down to it, I would be able to afford a high-end, long term care facility, retailing for $7500 per month.
This plan was my safety net. I knew if the shit hit the fan and I needed long term care, I would be able to afford it and I would NEVER be a burden on L.
Over the next 25 years, my ex-husband and I continued to pay our small monthly stipends. In violation of our contracts, the CalPERS-Long Term Care program began steadily increasing our rates, eventually doubling and then tripling them. The members sued over this breach of contract, but my ex-husband and I continued to pay whatever was asked because the plan was so important to us and still economically feasible. In the beginning of 2022, I was scheduled to pay $370 per month. Even though this increased wage was a violation of my contract, I still considered it a bargain. If I were to purchase a Long-Term Care program at my age now, it would be astronomical. In fact, B. signed up for this program in his 40s and his monthly payment was scheduled to increase between $700 and $900. Because my ex-husband and I signed up when we were so young, this plan was a steal and I was NEVER going to give it up, even if it took most of my pension and I had to eat cat food.
Unfortunately, after 7 years of litigation, it was discovered that this program that I had consistently paid into for 25 years was a Ponzi scheme and last month I was notified of this fact. There was never enough money available to cover ALL of the members’ long term care and it came out in Court that actuaries, financial advisors, and economists had advised CalPERS that the model was NOT sustainable when CalPERS launched the program four years before my ex-husband and I enrolled [in the early 1990s]. So CalPERS knew the program was a fraud from the beginning.
Although the term “Ponzi scheme” was referenced in the Court documents and it was determined that the members had actually been defrauded, CalPERS suffered no repercussions and none of the board members were criminally charged. Instead, with a simple stroke of the pen, the lone Judge presiding over this 7-year court case, determined that CalPERS would refund the total number of monthly installments for every member. That’s it.
Because my ex and I enrolled when we were so young, our monthly installments were low so our grand total is around $20,000, which is nothing. $20,000 will cover approximately 4 months for me at a premium nursing home. Recall that I was entitled to lifetime care, totaling $5500 per month under the program that I signed up for. They say the average nursing home stay is 3 years so my total cost would retail for around $200,000. Even if I was a savvy investor, I would never be able to parlay a measly $20,000 into $200,000 over the next 10 years, which is when I’ll hit my 60s and things start falling apart physically.
Additionally, the judge didn’t bother to decree the return of our money with interest. If I wasn’t making that monthly payment to CalPERS, I could have been putting that payment into some sort of compound interest investment vehicle. Instead, I lost money when I forwarded my payment to CalPERS every month and received nothing on my return. It’s the same as putting money in a savings account with 0% interest. Why would I do that?
What is so frustrating is that I did the right thing. I planned for my future so I wouldn’t be a burden on my child, my community, and the state of California in the event I became disabled and needed long-term care. I was responsible…and I was defrauded…by my own pension plan! And there are no consequences for what I view is a crime. CalPERS knew at the program’s inception that it wasn’t sustainable, yet continued to market it to hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of people knowing full well that it was a lie.
To prove a crime you have to prove intent and the evidence found that CalPERS knew they would never be able to afford long-term care of this magnitude for so many members, yet they continued to enroll as many people as possible, even poaching CalSTRS members. It was a scam from the very beginning. As is typically the case in a Ponzi scheme, the first few investors – the top of the pyramid – generally had a more favorable outcome as the machine continued its constant and never-ending quest to enroll more and more victims in order to shore up the bottom of the pyramid. But, eventually, the pyramid will collapse [**see Bernie Madoff]. It’s never a surprise to the suspects who are perpetrating the fraud. The collapse of this house of cards was always expected…the bigger question was, “When?” The members (investors), as is so often the case, didn’t have a clue that anything was wrong.
This is so depressing.
7:00-7:30 – L. has just finished her second class of the semester and this one is another Art History course. L. is discovering that artists don’t like [or simply can’t] write and some of the students seem concerned that there are several papers due in this class. L. is an excellent writer and confident that she will do well in this class. I think this class will take the least amount of work.
8:00-10:30 – L. and I watch Married at First Sight, then;
10:30-11:30 – I do a 1-hour Insanity – Pure Cardio workout.
11:30-12:30 – I color my hair, then;
12:30-1:15 – jump in the shower to wash out the color.
1:15-2:15 – I braid my hair.
2:15-3:15 – Nighttime routine. Bed.