Posted on 05/12/2009 12:43:03 PM PDT by justlurking
The financial health of Social Security and Medicare, the government's two biggest benefit programs, have worsened because of the severe recession, and Medicare is now paying out more than it receives.
Trustees of the programs said Tuesday that Social Security will start paying out more in benefits than it collects in taxes in 2016, one year sooner than projected last year, and the giant trust fund will be depleted by 2037, four years sooner.
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 and will be insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than the date projected in last year's report.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
When Obamacare kicks in, most of us won't be treated for the illnesses that will keep us from reaching retirement age.
When will the tell people to “not bother to apply” for Social Security? I predict it will happen in about 10 years, right about the time I become eligible.
***... but it was unclear how much help those pledges would be in achieving Obama’s goal of extending coverage to some 50 million uninsured Americans. ***
The above is incorrect. There are NO uninsured Americans. All any American who is not paying for PRIVATE insurance has to do is walk into any ER in the country and he’ll be signed up for Medicaid. ( Funny that Medicaid was not mentioned in the article.) And Medicaid is just the same as Obama wants us all to be on, except we will ALL be under the government’s thumb when we need treatment. How do they figure the government will save any money that way? I still think Romney’s plan was best: Let anyone who CAN AFFORD private insurance pay for it or not get treatment. That cuts down on the cost of Medicaid and would be a huge savings for the taxpayers.
Also, the article was written as a scare tactic to help get socialized health passed.
When Obamacare kicks in, most of us won’t be treated for the illnesses that will keep us from reaching retirement age.
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And there wil be the ACORN types who pick out the conservatives for “special” treatment.
It looks like the SS "Trust" Fund is about $2.2 trillion.
When waitlists aren't enough — use eligibility criteria for expensive services. Too old? — sorry, no service. This solution will also help social security make its budget.
Isn’t it amazing that the dumbest MF’ers in the country are also the ones running it?
“It looks like the SS “Trust” Fund is about $2.2 trillion. “
Dang that is a lot of money.
I know...I think that THIS will be the issue to FINALLY mobilize America into action.....then again, when is Dancing with the Stars on....
I was in the pharmacy when an elderly lady picked up 6 perscritions - medicaid. Her total co pay was $2.56. I don’t know what the perscriptions were for but what a deal! Of course, you and I paid the difference.
Obama’s people are talking about 75% marginal tax rates for households over $250,000.
75%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Those dirty baby boomers...
They've seen fuel go beyond affordable....health care cost through the atmosphere....homes that are not affordable to many with even two incomes....they're told to use less water...less electricity... recycle everything...pay endless taxes....forced to pay for millions entering the country illegally while standing in line behind them in the emergency rooms....they'll be lucky to collect a dime of the tens of thousands of dollars confiscated from them in the form of Social Security taxes....They're jobs are no longer secure, if they have a job left....
Baby boomers are so damn spoiled...
Meanwhile...
U.S. Will Pay $2.6 Million to Train
Chinese Prostitutes to Drink
Responsibly on the Job
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=47976
And total intragovernmental debt is $4.305 trillion. The current debt held by the public is $6.955 trillion.
Using the creative accounting used by Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama, the increase in intragovernmental debt each year didn’t count towards the budget deficit that they reported. So they were able to claim much smaller deficits than what they were truly running, all to have the bill fall on someone later, or to push off the responsibility of actually fixing anything.
And fixing these programs would have taken very small changes at one point...
In 1940, if you lived to age 65, you had a life expectancy of about 13.7 more years.
Today, that figure stands at about 17.38 years.
In the meantime, retirment age has gone from 65 to 66 for the population eligible for full benefits.
If you increased retirement age by 3 years so that you had approximately the same number of years of benefits in retirement as when the program started, then you would have solved 100% of the funding problem, according to the American Academy of Actuaries. And that’s with increasing the age to 70 steadily, finally hitting 70 in the year 2030 - not even an instant jump.
That’s a fair solution - gradual increases to minimize hits to those right at retirement age but not putting an enormous burden on future generations while only benefitting the elderly.
But that’s too easy, and no politician, Repub or Dem, has had the guts to actually solve SS... Bush’s “solution” didn’t close squat of the funding gap.
Meanwhile...
Dead Woman Gets
Federal Stimulus Check
Millions of Americans on Social Security are receiving $250 checks as part of the president’s stimulus plan — including an Anne Arundel woman who died more than 40 years ago. /snip/ Social Security representatives said there is a good explanation. Of the about 52 million checks that have been mailed out, about 10,000 of those have been sent to people who are deceased.
http://www.wbaltv.com/money/19435100/detail.html
1099
Boomers fault!
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All those World War II vets shouldn’t have come back from the war and had all those babies. LOL
The American dream is no more. Time for us to relocate.
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