Why Congress Refuses To Fix Social Security
Amen. Always the cream off the milk for that bunch, and leftovers for everyone else, that is, if we get that much.
Great idea, Cat..... we want complete transparency. Yeah, and come clean with the ‘unofficial’ financial rewards.
Let’s get Elliot Spitzer in there to check ‘em out… YEE HAW.... Oh, wait… that would put DC class A restaurants and hotels out of business what with all the lobbyists runnin’ for the high country if Elliot ‘Clint’ Spitzer came ridin’ into town on his horse. Hate to think of the ‘small’ people out of work..... Oh wait...considering the HUGE amount of work involved in digging out the perks and such, Elliot would have to bring his posse. That would fill up the hotels and restaurants… Head ‘em up.. move ‘em out....
Posted by Phoenix
05/06/2005 at 11:33 AM
Great idea OCM
Means test Congressional Retirement Benefits.
No benefits for Millionaire Congresscritters, for the good of the country.
No Social Security or Medicare for Warren Buffett and Bill Gates, those two Democrats.
Common Sense comes to America.
Currently, in the land of the free, it is illegal to purchase health insurance after the age of 65. So we have to make it legal for millionaires to purchase their own health insurance and get off the government’s rolls.
Where in the constitution does it say it must be illegal for Americans, over the age of 65, to buy health insurance?
Posted by Z Woof
05/07/2005 at 07:56 AM
Excuse me OCM,
A person over 65 can’t buy insurance that covers RX but they can have it if it’s an employee health benefit. In 2006 you can purchase RX coverage for, they say, $35/month. This stand alone RX premium will increase through time.
Medicare Part A (for hospital costs - automatic and free)
Medicare Part B (for doctor payments) will soon be $90 a month (1/4 of cost) and the Feds are paying $270 a month (3/4 of cost). This cost is increasing at 15% per year which will make your cost double every 5 years.
Projected Part B costs (withholded from Social Security)
2006 — $90/month
2011 — $180/month
2016 — $360/month
2021 — $720/month
2026 — $1,440/month (Just 20 short years)
I hope you have saved enough to keep up with your end of this program because the Feds have not. The only way the Feds can keep your costs, and theirs, from going up faster than 15% a year is to drop doctors’ pay schedule. Costs for doctors are going up and their pay from Medicare is going down. Soon Docs won’t want to even see a Medicare person.
Medicare looks like an old 1965 Blue Cross program stuck in time. Stand alone hospital, doctor and RX plans are always way to expensive with deductibles on each.
Don’t forget Medicare Part A needs private Medigap insurance if you want your bills paid at 100%. My Mom is currently paying $171 a month. Mom’s Medigap projected would be:
2006 — $200/month
2011 — $400/month
2016 — $800/month
2021 — $1,600/month
2026 — $3,200/month
In 20 years Part B premium $1,440/month
In 20 years Medigap 3,200/month
In 20 years Part D (RX) more
Mom’s total monthly cost $4,640 plus RX premiumAnnual deductible and Out-Of-Pocket (OOP) for RX is $3,600
Happy Mother’s Day Mom/b]
Her Medicare Part B premiums will eat up her Social Security check, so that will be gone.
Posted by Z Woof
05/07/2005 at 11:37 AM
Here’s a gut-check on the problem. The current means and methods cannot and will not resolve the insolvency crisis. The combined effects of the Laffer Curve and the impact of the required levels of taxation necessary to restore solvency cannot be attained.
Period. The end.
Here’s the baseline analysis of the issue that is mathematically unassailable:
1. The looming current value of the future Social Security Trust Fund (SSTF) deficit is around $11 trillion. It is also directly “bound up” with the other major federal entitlement funding program mandatory spending REQUIREMENTS.
2. The SSTF deficit, combined with the Medicare/Medicaid (Title XIX) program deficits are over $50 trillion under the current plan construction.
3. If everything goes “beer and skittles” with our economy over the next 10 years and we can in fact sustain the current growth rate of 4.5% per annum for every year of that period (this would be a modern miracle in and of itself), our economy will only grow to approximately $17.4 trillion.
4. In that period of time, the percentage of our federal budget that will be required to satisfy the federal mandatory spending requirements will grow to 62% of total expenditures on a total budget of just over $4 trillion.
Now let’s do the math on this.
Total Deficit (Payment Liability): $50 trillion.
Total Federal Budget: $4 trillion
Years Required to Payoff Deficit @ 100%: 12+
This means that we can only pay off the looming mandatory payment obligation by taking 100% of the entire federal Budget and applying it ONLY to the entitlement deficit. No education, military, roads, commerce, or anything else.
If you think it is likely that we will cease funding public education, the military, homeland security, the justice system, or any other government service for 12 years to just pay for mandatory federal entitlement spending, then you are indeed a very special person.
Once you realize the old means and methods will not and cannot get you there, then you are ready to start considering what may in fact get you to where you want to be.
It’s about the math, stupid.
Posted by ClintLovell
05/08/2005 at 11:51 AM
Rural hospitals are getting the shaft in Medicare, big time. My Mom lives in Iowa which had the lowest Medicare reimbursement rates in the country and has no Medicare HMO. Here in Tampa Medicare HMOs advertise that it’s FREE, no Medigap premiums and it includes RX. I told my Mom to move down here and you won’t have to pay $171 a month for her Medigap and her drugs are paid too
Mom said, “No way am I moving to a city where millions of Federal dollars flow into monthly for healthy seniors. I prefer to live in a city that only gets low reimbursements, only on sick old people, so they can close up our hospitals.”
I told her, “That’s crazy, everybody pays the same Medicare tax no matter where you live. It is just not fair.”
The only bright spot in the whole Medicare Nightmare is that when old people figure out about FREE Medicare HMOs in Tampa and flock here by the millions, the price for my home will go up.
Posted by Z Woof
05/08/2005 at 11:56 AM
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