Government benefit programs (SS, MC) in trouble

[ckramer]

Source: yn

WASHINGTON - Trustees for the government's two biggest benefit programs warned Tuesday that Social Security and Medicare are facing "enormous challenges" with the threat to Medicare's solvency far more severe.

The trustees, issuing a once-a-year analysis of the government's two biggest benefit programs, said the resources in the Social Security trust fund will be depleted by 2041. The reserves in the Medicare trust fund that pays hospital benefits were projected to be wiped out by 2019.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080325/ap_on_go_ot/social_security

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Gas will be 6 bucks per gallon. Social Security will be gone. We'll see what will happen to Americans in a few years.

[Robbien]

1. Medicare will never go away

because it is the teat upon which the drug companies are attached. Very firmly attached, with their no-price-negotiation contracts tightly clutched in their sweaty palms.

SS on the other hand is in the direct sights of Wall Streeters and hedge funders.

[winston61]

15. Yeah, Wall Street and the hedge funders

have done such a bang up job with housing, why not give the Social Security system to plunder and destroy? Makes right wing sense to me.

[Hannah Bell]

2. SS has "problems" because certain parties want the fees from

that income stream. SS is 2 trillion dollars in SURPLUS.

alice in wonderland world. from the financial geniuses currently bringing you the derivatives meltdown.

they're genius is at picking our pockets.

[4_TN_TITANS]

27. Surplus? Not really...

The social security fund has been replaced by treasury notes to finance Bush wars and deficits. Al Gore knew exactly what he was talking about when he mentioned a lock-box.

[Hannah Bell]

28. By 1936 law, any excess SS collections MUST be borrowed into

the general fund in exchange for US Treasuries. Everyone in gov't knows this, so why are they talking about phony "lockboxes"?

The only way to "lockbox" SS collections is not to collect excess payments in the first place. Instead, a bi-partisan 80's Congress signed off on legislation to increase collections far above need to generate 30 years of surplus - contrary to the design of the original SS legislation.

To default on those T-bills is no different from defaulting on any other gov't debt obligation, The TF stands at 2 trillion. There is no problem paying it off over the 30-odd years of the boomers' retirement. Bush has give 1 trillion in tax cuts to the top 5% over ten years, & spent close to 1 trillion on war.

However, it's unlikely there will be any need to do so. If current trends continue, SS will continue to pay scheduled benefits without a hitch - despite what you hear in the media.

[acmavm]

3. Social Security is a BENEFIT? Shit, then someones (a lot of someones)

been ripping me off for decades.

[NMDemDist2]

4. 2041?? I should live so long..... n/t

[emald]

5. you got to wonder if these "trustees"

are the same folks who brought us the wonder of sub prime mortgages. If not the exact same they went to the same schools. quick, lets privatize the whole mess, give it to those responsible leaders of economic freedom so wise as to give loans without checking income. good stuff.

[mbperrin]

6. In 2041, the oldest boomers will be 95, and the youngest

will be 79. The problem will be solving itself by then, doncha think? I'll be 89 if I make it that far. Actually, if we will raise the income cap on withholding to $250,000, the fund is in surplus forever!

Medicare in 2019. The oldest boomers will be 73 and the youngest 57. If we don't have the sense by then to realize that the profit sector is creating this whole scenario, and if we don't have single payer by then, and if we don't know that we pay more than anyone else on the planet per capita now for health care and by far don't get the most for it, and that if we'd go single payer, we'd actually spend LESS for results, well, then we fucking DESERVE to have a problem by then.

This whole scare routing on SS has been going on long enough. Want a forever fix? Put Congress on both SS and MC instead of their cushy plan and see what happens!!! ;)


BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA! BE SCARED! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[whathappened]

7. ss & mc

the dumb shits , why can't there pea brains no what is causeing this problem , deflateing wages , lost of jobs means less money being collected to these funds , washington lives in a bubble of there own and give 2 shits what is left for us , as long as they get there's , all the dc rats needs to go straight back to the same coverage we get and no under the table money going to them either

[Hannah Bell]

31. yep, deflating wages & increases at the top are root causes. n/t

[fascisthunter]

8. Both Will Never Go Away...

I don't think Americans will let it happen.

[anitar1]

9. These freakin' liars are at it again. His bushness is ramping up

one of his favorite plans again. How to destroy SS. There is not a thing wrong with the program. If people really research it they can see how well it is set up. These greedy freaks want to get their hands on it and will try once again. Who could believe anything from his minions but lies ?

[Roland99]

16. Uh, these are not lies. This is REAL!

Check out the Concord Coalition (David Walker is the best-known member) and their Fiscal Wake-Up Tour.

[Hannah Bell]

29. The Concord Coalition is full of shit.

No, it's not real. Look at the numbers themselves, in the Trustees Reports, not the Concord Coalition.

[shanti]

33. * will be trying until

his last day in office!

[Juche]

10. It is a problem

Privitization is def. not the answer as private healthcare is more expensive than public, but rest assured that'll be the solution provided unless we start acting now.

Since 75% of medical costs go to a handful of chronic conditions, and the entire OECD world is suffering from this, and the 3rd world (esp china, india, latin america, etc) are about to start suffering from this we need to focus heavily in R&D to prevent either aging or chronic disease.

That and/or find ways to improve productivity in medicine.

Elderly medical care is a global issue. The booming economies of China & India will not be as booming when 20% of the population is over 60, and OECD countries will ahve problems with healthcare due to all the elderly.

So what should happen is a global research program to prevent and cure chronic dieases, or reverse the biochemistry of aging. Something as small as $50 billion a year in new R&D would go a long way.

[MadMaddie]

11. Put the fox in charge of the henhouse....loudly

scream that Medicaire is in trouble for the last 20 or so years and you have yourself a recipe for disaster.

[Doctor_J]

12. Another campaign commercial for us

"If Medicare is destroyed, millions of seniors will be face critical medical issues. So why are Republicans determined to destroy it?"

[Thothmes]

14. The only way the Republicans can destroy Medicare

or the Social Security System is with the active participation of the Democrats.

[Zynx]

13. These are hardly unsolvable problems.

Small tweaks now can keep the systems solvent for some time.

[Roland99]

17. There will have to be a mix of benefit cuts and an increase in taxes.

[mbperrin]

20. NO cuts needed. No increase in taxes. Just an increase in the

current ceiling on income on which we collect taxes.

Half of your current debt in this country is being financed by taking the $4 TRILLION dollar SURPLUSES in these accounts and buying Treasury Bonds with them. NOTHING at all needs to be done before 2041 on SS, and nothing before 2019 on MC. Those are the years the SURPLUSES run out. In other words, at that point, they're operating at breakeven.

Why do we have these huge surpluses? Because in the late 70s, boomers knew that someday they would retire, and we doubled the withholding on ourselves. Everything has been foreseen for a long time.
All that will be needed sometime in the next couple of decades are some small adjustments.

The whole MC crisis could be averted with single payer. We pay more per capita in this country for health care than any other and get less. It would actually be cheaper to cover everyone due to the preventative aspects of medicine under universal coverage. In other words, people would go in at the beginning of feeling ill, and get a prescription, instead of waiting until they need an emergency room and extended hospital stay with the resultant huge bill.

The flaw with single payer is that the greedy jackals who currently siphon huge profits out of the system by limiting access and treatment while maximizing payments won't like it. That makes me so sad!:nopity: Or maybe not.

We're being bamboozled if we let them steal the current huge surpluses and throw them into the stock market, which is what they really want.

The easy way to steal anything is to convince people that what it is is worthless!

Don't let them do it! Ask Rudman at the Coalition where his running buddy Phil Gramm is these days, would ya?

[Roland99]

26. You're going to raise $45-50 trillion on that alone? Good luck.

[Hannah Bell]

30. where did you get that number? what does it represent, supposedly?

The GDP of the entire world was 65 trillion in 2006. Your numbers have nothing to do with SS or Medicare/aid. If that's the kind of info you get from the Concord Coalition, I hope you're not paying them a fee.

[Roland99]

32. WaPo: Almost Unnoticed, Bipartisan Budget Anxiety

Almost Unnoticed, Bipartisan Budget Anxiety
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701238_pf.html

Walker put U.S. debt and obligations at $45 trillion in current dollars -- almost as much as the total net worth of all Americans, or $150,000 per person. Balancing the budget in 2040, he said, could require cutting total federal spending as much as 60 percent or raising taxes to 2 1/2 times today's levels.

Butler pointed out that without changes to Social Security and Medicare, in 25 years either a quarter of discretionary spending would need to be cut or U.S. tax rates would have to approach European levels. Putting it slightly differently, Sawhill posed a choice of 10 percent cuts in spending and much larger cuts in Social Security and Medicare, or a 40 percent increase in government spending relative to the size of the economy, and equivalent tax increases.

[Hannah Bell]

34. Bogus, bogus numbers. The level of deliberate duplicity is astonishing.

The entire world GDP is 53 trillion in nominal dollars, 65 trillion in PPP.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/xx.html


The total US debt is 9 trillion. That includes debt the gov owes to its people (SS = 2 trillion) as well as international debt.

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/


"Walker put U.S. debt and obligations at $45 trillion in current dollars"

The article says "debt & obligations". What they've done (& often do) is include future predicted shortfalls for SS, MC/Ma out on their 75-year timeline. They do this for SS all the time - the last time I saw it done they were saying SS is 17.6 trillion short.

What they didn't tell you in the story was that this is only what they PREDICT (intermediate forecast) SS will be short over a 75 year period.

They also don't tell you that their intermediate forecast has been wrong 8/10 times in the past ten years. Instead, on average, yearly REAL numbers keep coming in better than even their OPTIMISTIC prediction - which means SS will pay out scheduled benefits forever, without even dipping into the TF.

They can't predict next year accurately; do you think they can predict the next 75?

This is like extrapolating the DOD budget out 75 years, & calling it a current obligation. It's spectacularly duplicitous.

[The2ndWheel]

18. Something has to give

It has to come from somewhere, and wherever that somewhere is, it will have to take some from somewhere else, etc, etc. Everyone doesn't get to have everything. We never have, and we never will. Everyone will pick sides, whatever side is most beneficial to them, and we'll see where the chips fall. Do we make more people? Do we import more people? If we import them, does that make developing countries nothing but baby factories? Lower benefits? Raise taxes? Raise them on who? The wealthy? It's possible, but it won't happen quietly. Make the official retirement age above 65? 70? 75? We live longer, and healthier, so how can you keep 65 as the official retirement age? Just like universal healthcare, you need more and more people contributing into the system to make it work, to make it grow, to make it expand.

Aging populations are not something we've had to deal with before, at least not in the giant, complex, global economic system world. Something is going to have to happen. The US, western Europe, Japan, the core of the modern machine, are aging. What happens with China? India? African countries? South America? The Middle East? How is it all brought together? Who does it? Where does the money come from? Where does the money go?

[mbperrin]

21. What has to give?

Limiting access and treatment while jacking up costs and premiums is what must give.

The synergies of universal single payer will pay for the system itself. But Frist and his family will have to give up their huge profits earned on the backs of the ill!

Too bad, ain't it?

$4 TRILLION in surpluses, right now!!!!

[navarth]

24. Thank you, mbperrin, for making sense.

There's no prob with SS if we just stop borrowing from it.

Fucking Bu$h economy

[midnight armadillo]

35. Easy, the military does

There is simply NO WAY we can continue to field a $750 billion military in the coming decades. Dropping that down to, say, $275 billion would still give us the largest military budget in the world and force the Pentagon to make cost-effective spending choices. OF course, we'll have to lose our taste for some of the regular military adventures we go on and use more (gasp) diplomacy...

What could we do with the spare $475 billion that would free up? The mind boggles.

[pokercat999]

19. With decent leadership we'll have free healthcare by 2019

and SS will be secure and improved.

With the current leadership in both parties SS and MC are doomed and so are we, just my opinion.

[Acadia Blue]

22. Bail our Bear Sterns and let the rest die. capatilistic pigs now is

a term starting to make sense for the first time in relation to the USA since I learned the term.

[Theres-a]

23. No one could've predicted it.

Right?:banghead:

[lark]

25. Thank you Bush and Cheney

another FUBAR mess you've escalated!

Of course, I think the answer is fixing at least the SS part is relatively simple, economically speaking, but politically, that's another story. If everyone paid into SS for all of their income, it would be solvent. I think right now people only pay SS on the first $110,000 of wages. Take off the limit, have it include all income regardless of source, and we'd be where we need to be - or at least a hell of a lot closer. Getting the Repugs and conservative Dems to vote for this could be impossible, so we need a large majority of Dems in Senate and House. Of course, most importantly, we need a Dem President!!

[Honeycombe8]

36. That Medicare Rx benefit added by the Repubs was trillion dollar costly...

the Dems didn't do it. It's the Repubs' fault.

SS will be fine, if a Dem gets into the W.H. and there's a Dem Congress. Every few years Washington screams that SS is in trouble, then they fix it until the Repubs get in office and steal the money and yell again that SS is in trouble and must be privatized.