Posted on 09/09/2006 6:10:49 PM PDT by lauriehelds
After 41 years of charging most older Americans the same price for the same care, Medicare will require affluent seniors to pay higher monthly premiums for coverage of doctors' visits, diagnostic tests and outpatient hospital care beginning in 2007.
A little-known provision of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act calls for an estimated 1.5 million seniors to face higher premiums, from 10 to 55 percent over the next three years, if they have income of at least $80,000 a year, or $160,000 for married couples. Seniors taking in more than $200,000 and couples making more than $400,000 will see their so-called Part B premiums rise the most.
The move, designed to help shore up Medicare's shaky finances, has enraged many because it was adopted without public debate. A Republican-led conference committee added the measure to the Medicare bill even though neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate version contained it.
Medicare, the national health plan for the elderly and people with disabilities, faces an uncertain future because of rising healthcare costs, a growing number of beneficiaries who utilize more services and a dwindling tax base to support the program.
The premium increases are expected to boost revenue by about $7.7 billion from 2007 to 2011, and $20.8 billion from 2007 to 2016.
(Excerpt) Read more at miami.com ...
Apparently too poor to pay for their own insurance. I love socialism.
As Adam Smith said long ago - wealth is constantly transfered. I don't think government should be the primary agent here but some of that in our society is unavoidable.
And, yes, means testing is very conservative. It's one of the chief components of the successful welfare reform of 1996.
What's liberal/socialist is all pay the same and all get the same regardless of means or circumstance. One size fits all.
"Bush wants to introduce personal private investments into the Social Security Trust"
BS. Bush "wants" SS privitized as much as he wanted Miguel Estrada confirmed - not much. Having neither provides a useful bloody shirt to the base.
The same bunch that refuse to secure our borders and kick the criminal invaders out.
Up is down...Black is white...Good is bad...sheesh.
Allow me to explain something. What's even more liberal than "all pay the same and get the same", is some pay more and get less, while others pay nothing and get much.
The best option is to jettison entitlement programs entirely. Failing that, about the worst thing we can do is tell society's most productive members that they were merely transferring their wealth to the least productive members.
Thanks for you reply. I think sometimes we all (myself included) tend to do more talking than listening.
I think in regard to means testing it's conservative in that it disqualifies anyone who should be ineligible. As I said to another FReeper it's the key component of the successful welfare reform of 1996.
I don't like entitlements but I say the reality is that as long as we're stuck with them let's make them as competitive and open to private individual control as possible.
I think some of the confusion was the result of not making myself clear. Because I want to REFORM entitlements that are already here -- it doesn't mean that I want more or favor a big government system that creates them. I don't. In fact, as I said, that's one of my biggest problems with Bush.
I agree that Bush has caved on too many issues but on this one I'll give him a pass. He could easily have avoided the whole "thid rail" of politics but had the political courage to tell people the unpleasant truth. The fact was that it caused such a firestorm from the Dems he had to back down. It was a harsh political reality.
SS is in BIG trouble. I want mine as quickly as possible.
Congress can stop SS anytime they want. There's no law that says SS has to go on forever.
I'll take my chances.
Personally I won't be so quick to speak, I'm 46, my Dad was fortunately able to retire with a small pension, between it and his social security he is making it. I remember him as a kid saying, "SS won't be around when I retire", well time flew by and he retired. He was one of the few that was able to retire with a pension. I'm basically following in his footsteps, a blue collar worker, putting in long hours, working on the side etc, except I have no pension to look forward to and well those blue collar factories don't even care about pitching in to help you with the 401K programs anymore. So my generation, which is your generation, is becoming more dependent on SS as time goes by. So I sure am hoping and planning that SS is around when I get older, and I don't see it as a tax to subsidize sloth.
Right. Hand the big three entitlements --- SocSec, Medicare/Medicad and the prescription drug program --- over to a third party and privatize them immediately. The credit card companies do a wonderful job of shuffling money around and collecting unpaid debts from the deadbeats of society. For a small fee they've got the financial capabilities to administer and manage complex operations. Let them have a shot at running America's social welfare programs. IMO, they'd do a better job of running a bureaucracy then the federal governemnt has been doing for the last 40 years. Get the US governemnt out of the private business of healthcare and retirement for America's seniors.
Most people assume that because they paid in payroll taxes that they are entitled to benefits. But none of us pay in anything like what we would claim. I realized this when I got disabiity. In the first two years I had collected more than I had paid in working. but I may collect for 30 years.
If they make deductions competitive, that will stimulate people to shop alternatives. Many already pay $150/mo for Medigap.
When you drop some money in the collection plate at church, do you buy your own Thanksgiving meal and eat at home with your family, or do you push your way into the church-sponsored soup line because you gave more than the homeless they are feeding so you think you deserve a larger plate of food than them?
Why shouldnt the millionaire buy regular insurance instead of being jackbooted into Social security and medicare?
Another point related to yours -
Isn't SS and Medicare/Medicade witholding based on a percentage of income? So theoretically, the "millionaire" has paid far more into the system in the first place.... sort of a higher "premium" than the "average Joe"....
So the affluent retiree gets to pay more TWO times ----
The federal Government does not collect insurance premiums; it collects Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes, and Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA) taxes. Despite the name of the act, those taxes do not provide any insurance whatsoever. Although the government now maintains entitlement programs for elders with the names "Social Security" and "Medicare," the Congress can close those entitlements at will while continuing to collect the taxes.
A petty bureaucrat can discontinue, suspend, modify, limit, disqualify, or deny your entitlement with or without cause at any time. If an illegal alien assumes your Social Security number identity and dies, then you become legally deceased for the purposes of receiving the entitlement. Social Security and Medicare are unreliable at best even now, and you should plan to receive neither entitlement when and if you retire; however, you must continue to pay all taxes that the federal government demands of you, even if you become legally deceased. (You cannot claim certain statuses, such as a personal exemption or the right to file married jointly, on your income tax form if you become legally deceased.)
The "income tax" amendment authorizes the federal government to collect these taxes, as they constitute a few of several million various different taxes on various classes of income. The complexities and intricacies of tax law enable the extremely wealthy--like John Forbes Kerry, distinguished junior senator from the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts--to avoid paying taxes legally while we mere plebes send half our income to Washington and receive very little in return.
so you are all for redistributing the wealth from each according to his ability to each according to his need ?
Interesting home page, I spent one year in the Omaha area while stationed at Offutt AFB, would of stayed in that area after I got out except it's just too damn cold in Nebraska, and I was raised in Michigan, eventually I moved to Tennessee, a little bit warmer, and am now thinking of even moving further south if the opportunity prevails itself.
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