America cant finance all the long-term entitlement promises it already has made to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid beneficiaries. But President Obama and Congressional Democrats ignore this fact and insist instead on adopting still another entitlement with subsidies for health insurance for families making $100,000 a year or more, and Medicaid expanded even further. The latest Trustees Reports show the unfunded liability for Medicare alone is $89 trillion. Social Security adds another $15.1 trillion in unfunded liabilities, for a total of $104 trillion. And that doesnt even count Medicaid. The entire American economy right now produces only about $14 trillion a year
Since World War II, going back 60 years, total federal spending as a share of Gross Domestic Product has been stable, hovering around 20 percent. But the cost of the three big entitlement programs alone, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, is now projected to eventually reach 20.5 percent of GDP.
Counting burgeoning interest on the national debt, on our current course federal spending would skyrocket towards 40 percent of GDP by 2040. Counting state and local spending, total government in America would consume more than 50 percent of GDP. GDP would collapse under the weight of all that spending and the resulting taxation and debt. America, quite simply, would no longer be a free country in terms of the freedom of people to enjoy the fruits of their own labor.
This doubling of federal spending as a share of GDP implies a doubling of federal tax rates. The Heritage Foundation reports that trying to pay all of the promised benefits of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid by raising income taxes would require raising the top 35 percent tax bracket to 77 percent and the 25 percent tax bracket paid by middle-income earners to 55 percent. All income tax brackets, in fact, would have to be doubled.
By 2018, less than 10 years from now, Medicare Part A will be running a deficit of close to $100 billion. General revenue contributions for Medicare Parts B and D that year are now projected to be $364 billion. Consequently, the deficit for Medicare alone that year will be close to $500 billion, and that assumes a scheduled reduction, which Congress will surely reverse, in doctor and hospital reimbursements of more than 20 percent.
President Obamas runaway tax-and-spend economic policies aremaking all of this much worse. CBO projects the national debt would soar under his budget, from 40 percent of GDP today to 82 percent by 2019, almost as big as our entire economy. And this 10-year period includes only the very beginnings of the exploding entitlement crisis. The national debt at the end of World War II was 113 percent of GDP. Throwing President Obamas economic policies on top of the entitlement crisis would shoot the national debt well past that record. House GOP budget chief Paul Ryan projects the national debt would reach 200 percent of GDP by 2035 and continue rocketing upwards.
And this is before adoption of of a new national health care entitlement. In the face of this long-term entitlement crisis, it could not be more fiscally reckless and irresponsible to propose a new middle-class entitlement for health insurance.
FYI:Nine out of ten Medicare recipients have supplementary insurance to pay for what Medicare won't cover.
First, Obama asserted today that two thirds of the cost for adding 46 million uninsured to the insurance rolls could be found by wringing waste out of the system. As I heard him, Obama said that the Congressional Budget Office had confirmed this. I have a vague recollection that originally the Congressional Budget Office said that the savings asserted by the administration could not be made but that the administration then called in the CBO and beat them up until a new second report was issued which supported the administration. Is this correct? Does the matter now stands that the CBO backs up administration in its assertion that they can find about $30 billion a year in waste?
I think this is very important for selling this bill.
Second, are the journalists and the public conflating Sarah Palin's "death panels" with the provisions calling for payments to physicians for conducting and of life conferences? I thought the death panels alleged by Sarah Palin had to do with a board which might deny treatment to a handicapped youngster or an aged individual. Have I got it wrong? I understand the provisions for the end of life conferences, according to Grassley, have been withdrawn. But these are something different than the death panels, correct?
Medicare covers 80% of medical costs. Medi-Gap from AARP covers the last 20%. Wouldn’t they just love the gov. to cut back to 60% and you would have to pay AARP for the extra 40%. They get rich!
Currently $96 per month is taken from my social security to pay for Medicare.
When there is a cost of living increase in Social Security they take it back by increasing the cost of Medicare.
Everyone contributes to social security and medicare out of their paychecks.