Why are there no Dems talking about lower medicare to 55 to save money & gain jobs?

[Yo_Mama]

18. Because it's elitist, undemocratic, a subsidy to the winners from the losers

and would make a fiscal crisis even worse!

The per-person SUBSIDIZED (by the taxpayers) monthly premium cost would be over $570 a month for parts A, B & D (prescription coverage). So for a couple that would be $1,140 a month.

Most people would also want a Medigap, because there is a lot Medicare doesn't cover plus all the copays. That would be around $125-135 monthly additionally, or about $250 a month for a couple. Only the well off can afford to retire and pay $1,400 a month for medical coverage.

Don't we cater enough to the upper middle class in this country? The whole system is really set up for them already. They get massive tax subsidies, especially for saving.

If we wanted to do this why don't we just go single-payer so poor people can also get benefits? They are more likely to NEED to retire early, and they are the ones who are completely out of luck when they're too sick to get hired and too healthy to get disability.

For ONCE - just ONCE - why don't we try returning the Democratic party to its roots, which were concern for the lower-income, not the whining well-off?

Right now Medicare is hugely subsidized by the General Fund. Even if 55-65 year olds joining the program were generally healthier (which might not be the case), it's hard to see how a program funded 45% from the general fund could possibly be made more fiscally sound by more participants:
http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2012.pdf

The difference between Medicare’s total outlays and its “dedicated financing sources” reaches an estimated 45
percent of outlays in fiscal year 2012, the first year of the projection. Based on this result, Federal law requires the Trustees to issue a determination of projected “excess general revenue Medicare funding” in this report. This is the seventh consecutive such finding , and it again triggers a statutory “Medicare funding warning” that Federal general revenues are becoming a substantial share of total financing for Medicare.

Note that that 45% subsidy calculation was predicated on the SGR cut for Medicare providers, which of course did not happen because it never happens. It was about 27%. There will be only about a 2% cut in sequestration, so the 45% subsidy turns into a much higher subsidy.

The Trustees' estimate in 2012 was that the actual actuarial HI (hospital, Part A) insurance deficit was 2.43% of payroll, meaning we would have to increase the Medicare payroll tax from 2.9% to 5.33% to cover expected costs with the recommended level of general fund subsidy.