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True enough, Rod. Medicare and SS are both unsustainable. I get a kick out of Gibbs on Fox about "extending" the life of Medicare (Part A) by 8 years with Obamacare. The reality is that Medicare is a pay as you go system, just like SS. Medicare Part A has been running a deficit since 2008. To make up the shortfall, IOUs from the Medicare Trust Fund must be cashed in from the General Fund, which borrows 42 cents on the dollar. The 2016 or 2024 dates are when the IOUs run out. The fact is that Medicare is in the red and sucking up General Fund dollars. And the premiums for Medicare Parts B and D cover only 25% of the costs. The remaining 75%, by law, must come from the General Fund. With 10,000 people retiring every day for the next 20 years, is it any wonder that we are in big trouble? By 2030 one in five in this country will be 65 or older--twice what it is now. And by 2030 there will be only two workers for every retiree. I wish the GOP would go beyond the $716 billion raid on Medicare and emphasize the immediate impact of IPAB, which Sarah Palin described as a Death Panel. This part of Obamacare will affect seniors immediately. They will decide what treatments can be reimbursed or are acceptable. This will have a much more visceral connection to seniors who are just being assured by the GOP that they won't be affected. Once you start throwing around numbers with claims and counter claims, most people's eyes glaze over and tune it out. It is time to resurrect the term Death Panel, which is part of the existing law. It is not a plan, but a fact. Posting HTML This forum allows optional use of most HTML tags. If your post does not contain HTML, it will be converted to HTML when posted, retaining paragraphs as typed. This conversion is not performed if you have anything resembling an HTML tag in your text.

Great stuff much of which probably many of us did not know. How long will 10,000 per day be retiring and what will the effect of all this be in just a few years?

10,000 each and every day for the next 20 years. We are an aging society and the baby boom cohort will be going through the entitlement programs like locusts. It was/is entirely predictable. Congress should have acted much sooner. The longer we wait, the more draconian the solutions.

RG, next week I will tell my miracle story and my brush with Hollywood. It is truly amazing the flood that has happened in the last couple months.