SNN-Medicare insolvency

[DOGS THAT BARK]

---lets see--believe this was primary objective pre election--but unless you can call adding more welfare/foodstamps and wanting to create another grand daddy of them all socialized healthcare--all for Da Base can't see any moves by this admin to address issue.

Guess O believes Reid when he says (when Rebs tried to address issue in 2005)--


?Today?s report confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place ? the minds of Republicans,? said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. ?In reality, the program is on solid ground for decades to come.?

:0corn

Harry's report a little diff than recent report out-

Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday. Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, a year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner, trustees reported.
Medicare is in even worse shape. The trustees said the program for hospital expenses will pay out more in benefits than it collects this year, just as it did for the first time in 2008. The trustees project that the Medicare fund will be depleted by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year?s report.
The trust funds ? which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. ? are bonds that are backed by the government?s ?full faith and credit? but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes.

 

[djv]

They will fix these the same way. More Taxes. However true health care reform could help medicare. If it's true reform. S/S is easier.

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

They need to lift the cap. Simple as that.

 

[Chadman]

Interesting way to frame the point. You put forth that Social Security and Medicare will have more and more trouble in six or 27 years. And yet, you were one of the ones advocating that private financial entities should take over Social Security and that Medicare should also be considered for private enterprise - for the good of the recipients and the American people.

I wonder aloud how many of the financial institutions you would have wished take over Social Security and who would have made sure Medicare remained a solvent enterprise? Would those companies be the same ones who came crying to the government to bail them out? Would they have been the same ones whose stock prices have gone so far down over the last few years, through business practices they wanted us to believe in and care about?

Seriously - at this point - are Americans better served by private financial institutions controlling retirement and social security monies - or is the government, who really has no real fiduciary interest for Americans other than keeping a social norm and expectation both alive and viable?

Personally, at this point, I do not trust individual financial corporations to worry about my personal end game, when they have a Board of Directors and a CEO that only cares about their own personal lot in life, until they can better themselves with a bigger salary and better benefits and stock options. In this case, I guess I'd think the U.S. government and a congregate group of elected officials (gasp) and government workers might be a better steward of my money.

 

[kosar]

Interesting way to frame the point. You put forth that Social Security and Medicare will have more and more trouble in six or 27 years. And yet, you were one of the ones advocating that private financial entities should take over Social Security and that Medicare should also be considered for private enterprise - for the good of the recipients and the American people.

I wonder aloud how many of the financial institutions you would have wished take over Social Security and who would have made sure Medicare remained a solvent enterprise? Would those companies be the same ones who came crying to the government to bail them out? Would they have been the same ones whose stock prices have gone so far down over the last few years, through business practices they wanted us to believe in and care about?

Seriously - at this point - are Americans better served by private financial institutions controlling retirement and social security monies - or is the government, who really has no real fiduciary interest for Americans other than keeping a social norm and expectation both alive and viable?

Personally, at this point, I do not trust individual financial corporations to worry about my personal end game, when they have a Board of Directors and a CEO that only cares about their own personal lot in life, until they can better themselves with a bigger salary and better benefits and stock options. In this case, I guess I'd think the U.S. government and a congregate group of elected officials (gasp) and government workers might be a better steward of my money.

One of the things that I agreed with W on was SS being run by private entities. Well, not 'run by', but at least as an option. It's a disaster waiting to happen, but maybe not for another 20 or 30 years.

I don't really care about what's recently happened(banking, etc) in regard to this. There's no way possible that overall, our SS current 'system', will be more sustainable years down the road than if it was tied to mutual funds, bond funds, index funds, or whatever.

I think W's plan was to let people have the choice of what they prefer. I see nothing wrong with that at all.

 

[Chadman]

Here's another view of the situation from Robert Reich - which deals with the root problem of rising costs and self-serving medical and insurance entities and what they're doing to make the problems worse:

The Truth Behind the Social Security and Medicare Alarm Bells
May 13, 2009, 8:01AM

What are we to make of yesterday's report from the trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds that Social Security will run out of assets in 2037, four years sooner than previously forecast, and Medicare?s hospital fund will be exhausted by 2017, two years earlier than predicted a year ago?

Reports of these two funds' demise are not new. Fifteen years ago, when I was a trustee of the Social Security and the Medicare trust funds (which meant, essentially, that I and a few others met periodically with the official actuary of the funds, received his report, asked a few questions, and signed some papers) both funds were supposedly in trouble. But as I learned, the timing and magnitude of the trouble depended a great deal on what assumptions the actuary used in his models. As I recall, he then assumed that the economy would grow by about 2.6 percent a year over the next seventy-five years. But go back into American history all the way to the Civil War -- including the Great Depression and the severe depressions of the late 19th century -- and the economy's average annual growth is closer to 3 percent. Use a 3 percent assumption and Social Security is flush for the next seventy-five years.

Yes, I know, the post-war Baby Boom is moving through the population like a pig through a python. The number of retirees eligible for benefits will almost double to 79.5 million in 2045 from 40.5 million this year. But we knew that the Boomers were coming then, too. What we didn't know then was the surge in immigration. Yet immigrants are mostly young. Rather than being a drain on Social Security when the Boomers need it, most immigrants will be contributing to the system during these years, which should take more of the pressure off.

Even if you assume Social Security is a problem, it's not a big problem. Raise the ceiling slightly on yearly wages subject to Social Security payroll taxes (now a bit over $100,000), and the problem vanishes under harsher assumptions than I'd use about the future. President Obama suggested this in the campaign and stirred up a hornet's nest because this solution apparently dips too deeply into the middle class, which made him backtrack and begin talking about raising additional Social Security payroll taxes on people earning over $250,000. Social Security would also be in safe shape if it were slightly more means tested, or if the retirement age were raised just a bit. The main point is that Social Security is a tiny problem, as these things go.

Medicare is entirely different. It's a monster. But fixing it has everything to do with slowing the rate of growth of medical costs -- including, let's not forget, having a public option when it comes to choosing insurance plans under the emerging universal health insurance bill. With a public option, the government can use its bargaining power with drug companies and suppliers of medical services to reduce prices. And, as I've noted, keep pressure on private insurers to trim costs yet provide effective medical outcomes.

Don't be confused by these alarms from the Social Security and Medicare trustees. Social Security is a tiny problem. Medicare is a terrible one, but the problem is not really Medicare; it's quickly rising health-care costs. Look more closely and the real problem isn't even health-care costs; it's a system that pushes up costs by rewarding inefficiency, causing unbelievable waste, pushing over-medication, providing inadequate prevention, over-using emergency rooms because many uninsured people can't afford regular doctor checkups, and spending billions on advertising and marketing seeking to enroll healthy people and avoid sick ones.

 

[DOGS THAT BARK]

I had read that before you posted it Chad--
Apparently this guy was Harry Reids advisor- now we can add 2 people to the no prob list--

Harry-
Today?s report confirms that the so-called Social Security crisis exists in only one place ? the minds of Republicans,? said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. ?In reality, the program is on solid ground for decades to come.?

Reich--

"Even if you assume Social Security is a problem, it's not a big problem."
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

So by these two liberals standards- escalating debt to pay for social programs is just a myth?

Fine as long as we taxpayors can pay for the tax increases they are adding to pay for these mythical probs--in mythical $'s