Here are a couple of glimpses of what I am talking about.
quote:Spending on pensions pales in comparison with health care. The range of estimates is necessarily vague, since they involve assumptions about the future rate at which health-care costs will grow faster than per-head GDP each year: since 1970, the ?excess-cost growth? for retired people on Medicare has been around 3%. The CBO calculates that, if future excess-cost growth of both Medicare and Medicaid was only 2.5%, then federal spending on these programmes would jump from 3.9% of GDP in 2003 to 21% in 2050.
quote: ?substantial deficits projected far into the future can cause a fundamental shift in market expectations and a related loss of confidence both at home and abroad??in other words, a full-blown, third-world-style financial crisis.
Whether you agree with these dire predictions or not, one thing is abundantly clear: Either social programs MUST be cut or our taxes MUST skyrocket in the coming decades.
The situation can be helped by streamlining to cut waste and inefficiency in government, but even if that were feasible (And let's face it, it isn't going to happen) it would not be enough to avert the crisis we are brewing for ourselves with social security and medicare.
So what should we do? The politicans all seem to think that the best solution is to spend even more money on social programs we can't afford. The prescription drug plan will certainly ensure that things get worse faster.
The thing which amazes me is how few people seem to be talking about this.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
Warning: I am having a bad day and am in a bad mood. This will probably come out harsher than it should.
What do you suggest?
I hear a lot of people complaining that Social Security and Medicare will go down the toilet in the next 30 years, so we have to cut social programs right now.
Do it now and tell people that they are on their own.
Medicare will be 21% of GDP. THat can't be allowed to happen so we got to axe Medicare now.
What do we put in its place? Nothing.
Thats right. Just let the old fogeys die.
They need food? Bull. The elderly don't need to eat.
Hey, if they invest right now, people can have their own savings accounts up to the millions of dollars by the time they retire.
If the stock market doesn't tank again. And if they had money to do it. but that still doesn't answer the question, what do we do with those who don't invest?
Should we just open up the Soylent Greene factories and ship the starving old folks there?
If your Mutual Fund gets screwed up by a kickback taking agent, well, slit your wrists because we can't afford to keep you around.
There are plenty of charities that will take in the poor and hungry.
They have plenty of free space and free money to give out.
I don't donate to them all, but I'm sure somebody does.
ANd there is their families.
Let your kids pay for your health care. Sure it may come to a choice between killing off Dad or having no money to send JR to college, and JR's college education will get him the job he'll need to pay for your bypass surgery, so maybe offing Dad now is a good thing.
Do you know why Patricide was such a major crime in Ancient Greece? Many of the myths discuss it. Why? Because kids don't like spending their lives to take care of bed ridden parents.
Or maybe we should force the doctors and nurses to treat everyone at no pay.
Make a law saying you must give all the health care a person needs without pay.
Then see the numbers of doctors in this country skyrocket--not.
No, turning our back on this problem is not the answer. Neither is forgetting why we have Medicare and Social Security.
Despite predictions to the contrary, there was once a time in this country when retire's ate dog food because they couldn't afford human food.
There was once a time when they died because they could not afford a doctor.
Many still die because they cannot afford the medicine they need to live.
And through no fault of your own, though you do everything fiscally perfect, that person who must choose between dialysis and dinner, between paying for the car that takes you to work or paying for the mechanical heart your mother needs, that person who looses all their savings to fraud, theft or bad luck, could easilly be you.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Oh, they are talking about it. It's just that those who realize what Bush is doing are nut jobs that no one takes seriously.
See, what Bush (or the puppets pulling the strings) is doing is trying to bankrupt Medicare they don't want this program (and others like it) around. They are more the "Social Darwinism" types. However, in trying to bankrupt it, he looks like he is doing something good, like funding prescription drugs for seniors, when in reality, it will merely speed the program's demise that much more quickly.
Um, yeah, so that's why only nut jobs talk about it.
Posts: 171 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote: George W. Bush and right-wing Republicans are ramming through Congress legislation to destroy the federal Medicare program under the guise of providing seniors a prescription drug benefit.
posted
Dan, is it better to have the whole system collapse? Will funding social programs until everyone is bled dry help anything?
I'm not saying it will happen; I'm not an economics expert. But I think both of us can see that it could happen, if the government were run badly enough.
Sometimes you have to choose who you're going to save, or end up saving no one. Real life isn't a Spider-Man movie.
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Feb 2002
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There's plenty to cut. For one thing, we can stop dumping billions and billions of extra money into military projects that have achieved us nothing (except perhaps provoking terrorism.) Or we could refrain from starting giant space projects until we've payed off the national credit card. And we could make a lot of government programs a lot more efficient, if we really wanted to get serious about cutting stuff.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
"And we could make a lot of government programs a lot more efficient, if we really wanted to get serious about cutting stuff."
The thing is, the premise behind all the "starve the beast" plans is that government programs, by definition, can NEVER be efficient, so it's necessary to run up so much of a deficit that the government will never have programs again.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I don't even begin to pretend I know much about this, but I do know social programs are on my mind as I approach retirement.
Question: Are there countries in Europe that are managing to keep health care and retirement while keeping taxation relatively under control?
Quesion: Is our dilemma the result of our leaders lacking the courage? ability? to think "outside the box" and come up with a new way to fund programs like these? That is, is our system so bound up in the way things are that cannot change to the way things ought to be?
Wondering: I really fear that answers are all around us (for those smarter than I am, that is), but we lack the ability, leadership, realization to know how to find and implement them. We like our system the way it is, thank you.
I am just John Q. Citizen here. Not pretending to be an answer man. Just thinking.
Posts: 440 | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
Most of the social programs where started with a large base and a limited benefit. The base was growing so the cost did not seem that high for the benefit. However, whoever started the program did not look forward and see that there was this huge bump in the population, called the Baby Boom. Once the politicians saw that people liked what they were getting, the programs started to expand to cover more and more people. Now they can not say no.
The choice will be to cut the benefits for those about to retire, or tax their grandkids into oblivion.
posted
Dan- your bad mood did indeed come through in your post. No matter, the point is well taken: what can we do about this problem?
I think that there are plenty of helpful steps to take now. 1) Change social security. This could involve many things- make it illegal for the government to borrow from these funds, up the retirement age, put a lifetime benefit limit cap, put a cap on those who may receive benefits based on net assets, limit it to a retirment-only fund and account for other things such as disability separately.
2) Do NOT pass the prescription benefits bill. It is simple enough really. Sure, it would be nice if we could care for everyone who needs it in every possible way. But the fact is there simply aren't enough resources to do this without increasing taxes to Eurpopean levels and beyond.
3) Cut back on optional expenditures such as military, space etc.
Posts: 4548 | Registered: May 2001
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posted
How do you fix Medicare and Social Security?
First, the easier of the two: Medicare
1) Work towards covering more prevention. A few years back, someone realized it was much more cost effective for Medicare to cover the cost of diabetic testing supplies than it was to continually treat the effects of severe diabetes. That's a step in the right direction.
2) Better collective bargaining for the Medicare system. Why should Medicare have to pay a price for drugs in the US when they could be bought cheaper in Canada?
3) Start shopping for failing hospitals around the country and work out Federal/State partnerships to rehab these as Medicare extended service units, much like VA hospitals. (You might be surprised by the number of financially failing hospitals). At these hospitals, worse case scenario patients could receive care without Medicare having to cover overhead costs. They could also provide additional internships and/or student loan work-offs for medical professionals of all levels.
4) Investigate home health care claims to eliminate price gouging.
5) Eliminate white elephant dumping by the private insurance industry.
6) Sadly, increase the payroll deduction by 1% to provide additional funding.
7) Divise a sliding scale adjustment for Medicare benefits based on net worth and liquid assets of the recipients.
8) Offer a large tax credit to families who choose to keep their elderly family members at home with them rather than placing the elderly in nursing homes.
Now, Social Security.
1) Pay back all monies borrowed from the account, with interest. Enact legislation to prevent future borrowings.
2) Allow 3/4 benefits for first three years of Social Security eligibility.
3) Do NOT allow people to "opt out" of the Social Security system and handle their own investments. Those who can already invest for their retirements already do so. Those unable to do so will STILL be unable to do so.
4) End direct payment of Social Security benefits to retirement/nursing homes.
5) Allow tax payers to voluntarily contribute more into Social Security and guarantee them a 3% return on their money and that it will be added to their future Social Security payouts. For example, if I decide to put $10 more per week in on Social Security now, I will get $10 a week (plus the accrued interest) additional on my Social Security. Just remember that at 2% compounded interest, your money deposited will double itself every 10 years. $10 today is worth $20 in 10 years. This would inject money into the system right now on a purely voluntary basis and by its nature would require that Social Security be around in 50-60 years.
That's just off the top of my head.
Edit to add: On Social Security, do we go back and require those who have been convicted of tax evasion to also pay up on the Social Security taxes they avoided and pay a penalty as well?
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