FFS... the PURPOSE of ENTITLEMENT REFORM is to REDUCE benefits

[JDPriestly]

98. Medicaid is already means-tested.

Seniors pretty much have to spend down all their assets before they qualify for it.

I have heard that nursing homes cost about $5,000 per month. Just hearsay. Maybe someone has a better number?

Social Security benefit amounts are here:

Average benefits paid out to retirees as of August 2013:

Old-Age and Survivors Insurance . . . . 1,203.72
Retirement benefits . . . 1,224.69
Retired workers . . . 1,270.38
Spouses of retired workers . . . 634.20
Children of retired workers . . . 619.95

http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/

The minimum benefit is $1.

http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/254/~/minimum-social-security-retirement-amount

The maximum benefit depends on the age at which you retire and your income (how much you put in).

The maximum benefit depends on the age you retire. For example, if you retire at your full retirement age in 2013, your maximum benefit would be $2,533. But if you retire at age 62 in 2013, your maximum benefit would be $1,923. If you retire at age 70 in 2013, your maximum benefit would be $3,350.

http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/5/~/maximum-retirement-benefit

You would have to put in a lot of money and retire at 70 to get $3,350 per month.

Obviously, if the average benefit is $1,224.69, not many people qualify for $3,350 per month.

Most seniors are poor, especially as they age. The older they get, the more their private savings run out. That is why the chained CPI is such an especially bad idea.

If a person lives to, say, 95, it is quite possible that he or she will have spent a lot of any savings he or she managed to accumulate on the extra medical costs. Over-the-counter drugs and treatments are not included in Medicare. Neither is the car that an elderly person may need because he or she cannot walk well any more. Forget about riding a bike. And many, many Americans live in places where there is no public transportation.

Medicare is not necessarily free. They take a payment directly out of your monthly Social Security payment for Medicare. I don't know if the amount is standard. My elderly mother pays as much for her Medicare insurance as many are now paying for their plans under the ACA for a family and after the subsidy. She is not rich. Some insurers provide inexpensive care. Some plans cost as much as a plan without Medicare (in my opinion).

The alternative to paying out the sums people need for a subsistence life (the average monthly Social Security benefit is barely above the poverty level) and for medical care is just letting seniors die in misery. Is that what America is about? We need to ask Stockman that.

Here are some other people's statements on this:

Two Wall Street henchmen, Alan Greenspan and David Stockman, set up the Social Security raid in this way: The Carter administration had put Social Security in the black for the foreseeable future by establishing a schedule for future Social Security payroll tax increases. Greenspan and Stockman conspired to phase in the payroll tax increases earlier than was needed in order to gain surplus Social Security revenues that could be used to finance other government spending, thus reducing the budget deficit. They sold it to President Reagan as "putting Social Security on a sound basis."

Along the way Americans were told that the surplus revenues were going into a special Social Security trust fund at the U.S. Treasury. But what is in the fund is Treasury IOUs for the spent revenues. When the "trust funds" are needed to pay Social Security benefits, the Treasury will have to sell more debt in order to redeem the IOUs.

Social Security was mugged again during the Clinton administration when the Boskin Commission jimmied the Consumer Price Index in order to reduce the inflation adjustments that Social Security recipients receive, thus diverting money from Social Security retirees to other uses.

. . . .

Wall Street Targets the Elderly: Looting Social Security
Paul Craig Roberts

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/02.10/looting.html

I strongly disagree with Roberts' (who is in my view just another conservative) suggestion that we should have privatized Social Security. Had that happened, seniors would have absolutely nothing. Wall Street would simply have stolen it out of our "investments." That would have been even easier for Wall Street. We have some crooks at the top in our country. That is the problem.

And, you don't have to sell more bonds to cover deficits and spending, how about raising taxes on the corporations and individuals who have the money in this country? I especially favor inheritance taxes and taxes on stock market transactions. Bush fought two wars and gave tax cuts without increasing taxes. No wonder we have a problem.

And this was first published in November 1981:

This year's embarrassment has prompted some Reagan partisans to conclude that Social Security is the president's political "blind spot." Thrice burned, White House strategists now hope to ignore the issue at least until after the 1982 congressional elections.

Among those stung by the controversy was budget director David Stockman, who pushed for the Social Security cuts, convinced Reagan, then watched his plans collapse against the stone wall of congressional opposition.

Stockman concluded very early, sources said, that if he were to achieve Reagan's goal of balancing the budget he could not ignore the most politically sensitive budget item of all. Social Security has long been considered immune to budget-cutting, even in the toughest economic times. As a result, it spends beyond its means, and the arithmetic of an aging society shows it will go broke unless taxes are raised or benefits reduced.

More.

http://newsok.com/social-security-remains-biggest-thorn-in-reagans-side/article/1963068

Again, that article was written by an anti-Social Security conservative.

I am posting these conservative articles not because I agree with them but so that everyone can see the Republican strategy that was solidly in place and being implemented beginning the Reagan era. It was also in 1985 if not before that the idea of "free" trade hit Congress. I remember the C-Span broadcast discussions in Congress on it. The aim was to destroy Social Security. Democrats have to fight this. This is the key political fight of our time. If Democrats let down seniors on this, they are letting down all the American people. And Democrats will, if the default on Social Security cause a great deal of trouble for and within the US.

Republicans wanted to destroy Social Security from the very beginning. They pressed forward under Reagan always under the pretense that they were "saving" or "strengthening" (Obama's term for it) the system.

In fact, they are stealing from American seniors. And those of you in younger generations should study the history on this. When they tell you they are going to save Social Security for you, they are just up to their old tricks.

We need to change our trade policy to motivate businesses to produce and employ in the US, and we need to raise the minimum wage. If we drastically modify our "free" (not free at all because it has cost us millions of jobs) trade policies and raise the minimum wage, everyone will have Social Security. In fact, if we return to full employment, really full employment, employers may continue to employ seniors until they reach 70, and we won't have any problem at all.

I know so many people who lose or have lost their jobs in their 50s. I remember one of my bosses told me when I had reached 50 that there was a reason men divorced their wives in their 50s. That's how employers feel about their employees. When you are old you are expendable. Some employers don't feel that way. Some view older workers as people they can exploit and pay low wages. Some actually value older workers (but they are a minority).

So many Americans in their 20s and 30s are underemployed.

It's the economy, stupid, not Social Security.