Total Boomer Luxury Communism”: Why the Federal Deficit is on Autopilot

OpentheBooks.com ^ | 6/12/26 | Open the Books

[spintreebob]

The budget can’t be balanced without reform to Social Security and Medicare. Why won’t politicians admit it?

America’s entitlement programs have morphed into something their creators never intended: an intergenerational wealth transfer sustained by promises that are completely removed from fiscal reality.

The numbers are no longer debatable. Social Security and Medicare are on a collision course with insolvency that polite political rhetoric cannot wish away. While rooting out fraud and improving efficiency should be one of Washington’s top priorities, that alone cannot close the gap.

The baby boomer generation benefited from favorable demographics, strong wage growth and affordable homes and mortgage rates during their working years, but those conditions no longer exist. Younger Americans now face stagnant wealth, crushing housing costs and the prospect of paying into programs that may not be there for them — all while watching their tax dollars subsidize golf outings, pet grooming, and high-speed internet for retirees.

Ignoring the numbers won’t make them disappear. Politicians on both sides know the truth but fear the backlash of admitting it. The result is rising debt and a crisis that will eventually force far more painful choices than if we acted responsibly today.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: backlash; entitlement; medicare; wealthtransfer

[spintreebob]

Open The Books is correct about the big problem. Cutting FRAUD alone will not solve all problems. But I suggest that a) It is a Judeo-Christian duty to cut fraud. b) Cutting FRAUD should be a priority, even though it is only a partial solution. c) Cutting Fraud can gain majority support among voters. d) Cutting Fraud is a necessary step before other steps will be palatable.

[Brian Griffin]

For health care, bring on market force:
1. Break most hospitals into two highly competitive entities.
2. Convert other hospitals into real estate leasing entities with competing surgical suites and nursing wings.
3. Separate out drug coverage so hospital systems can run care coverage systems and cut out insurance company overhead and meddlers.
4. Create interstate drug plans that don’t have to pay what the drugmaker wants for every drug. To qualify for exchange listing and federal subsidies, they would have to most (~80% or more) in all important types (large volume recombinant, small volume recombinant, breakthroughs under patent, etc.). Group and exchange plans to offer time-limited vouchers at plan set amounts for out-of-formulary drugs. Voucher plans would have variable premiums. Plans without minimums (or vouchers) could be vended directly to individuals and families.
5. These plans would be all the doctors (and AI) prescribe for formulary drugs with co-pays equal to manufacturing cost
6. Reform medical education, breaking down medicine and dentistry into simpler chunks and start it in the first year of college
7. Replace most primary care doctoring with AI.
(Insurers would pay human doctors to confirm AI diagnosis, orders for expensive tests[MRI, genetic], prescribe radiation imaging[CT, PET, X-ray]/treatment, and voucher/government co-pay drugs. Other human doctor care would be private pay.)
8. Radioisotope-related care would be at international airport centers

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

The boomers had nothing to do with setting up Medicare or SS.

They are the one generation that not only paid into both programs but paid at a much higher rate.

Their parents and grandparents were the people who threw a fit about any of those things being touched. But, now that the Boomers have reached an age where they will be getting back a very SMALL amount of the money they were forced to pay into the system, why they are EVIL.

Everything they have must be stripped from them and they need to be shoved out on to the ice to die.

I don't think there has ever been a generation that has been so hated for no reason.

[Brian Griffin]

An operation takes place in a room.

This is a nurse with a gown on and a cart with a set of scalpels, some hand tools such as clamps, some suture material and sometimes a stapling device and staples. She also has a suctioning device.

The patient is placed on a bed and draped.

There is a surgeon. He has gown on. He will refer to an imaging display device.

There is an anesthesiologist. He has an anesthesia machine, with heart and breathing monitoring, some gas tanks and tubing, a CO2 absorption container and material, and a mask for the patient. He will also have a few syringes and a vial with an off-patent pre-induction drug. He will also have airway management inserts and off-patent drugs in case there is a problem.

Sometimes, there will be a heart bypass machine and a nurse to man it.

Sometimes, samples of tissue such as from lymph nodes which might have cancer cells will have to be sent to a pathologist for examination.

It might take about 15 manhours for these people to do their work on the patient, on average.

The patient might have worked 80,000 manhours.

[dljordan]

It’s Boomers, all Boomers. Worthless POS. They should all die soon.

[Zathras]

Exactly correct.
I pinched, saved, struggled and sacrificed to finally get close to retirement.
70 and still working but good reasons why.

[utax]

“It’s Boomers, all Boomers. Worthless POS. They should all die soon.”

Sorry to disappoint you. First SS payment rolls in three weeks from Wednesday. Going to stay healthy so i can collect a looong time.

[pierrem15]

Any politician who tries to cut either Social Security or Medicare will be hung from a lamppost.

There are two far easier solutions: a) subject all income to Social Security and Medicare taxes; b) fix healthcare costs, which are out of control in the US, by mandating national reimbursement rates and replacing all our ad hoc government insurance plans like VA/Medicare/Medicaid/Workmans Comp with one insurance plan, and c) everyone pays insurance, increasing the pool, part time workers are pro-rated.

There are no large-scale "free market" reforms possible because a) demand for healthcare is not elastic (if you're sick, you're sick); b) they would immediately threaten access to healthcare for everyone currently insured and are thus a political impossiblity.

[odawg]

“Everything they have must be stripped from them and they need to be shoved out on to the ice to die.”

Isn’t that communism?

[SecondAmendment]

> The boomers had nothing to do with setting up Medicare or SS.

Um no, the "boomers" didn't set up SS, but they were absolutely instrumental in creating Medicare in 1965 as an expansion to SS.

> I don't think there has ever been a generation that has been so hated for no reason.

Cloward, Piven, Allinsky, Clinton (both), Pelosi, Obama ....

[bigbob]

Spot on. It’s just jealousy from those who wish they had the same. But here’s a clue, kids- Boomers worked real jobs and saved their money. They know there are just two genders and you can’t change. They know the climate has always changed and that America is the best nation on earth. And our music didn’t suck.

[TexasFreeper2009]

What should be done is to convert all social security contributions into a 401K style plan that is owned by the individual.

contributions would be mandatory just like social security and medicaid are now, but then it wouldn’t be tied to the government budget anymore

[Carry_Okie]

The budget can’t be balanced without reform to Social Security and Medicare.

Social Security and Medicare were bogus deals from the beginning. Raising retirement ages and means testing are the first steps in fixing it, hopefully to dump them both in favor of a privatized system.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Um no, the "boomers" didn't set up SS, but they were absolutely instrumental in creating Medicare in 1965 as an expansion to SS.

No. They were not. In 1965 the oldest boomer was 19 and not allowed to vote in most of the country.

All of that was done by "The Most Commie Generation" and their children "Commies are our ALLIES".

You know, the people who paid into the system at 3% only to raise to to 12.6% when their children entered the work force.

[MinorityRepublican]

I pinched, saved, struggled and sacrificed to finally get close to retirement. 70 and still working but good reasons why.

So Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z should get screwed over.

But the important thing is that the Boomers get 100%.

Let's face it. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. We have to admit that then we can fix the problem.

[NorthMountain]

Total Boomer

Generational labeling and stereotyping irreparably destroys credibility.

[marktwain]

a) demand for healthcare is not elastic (if you’re sick, you’re sick);

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I disagree. There is a lot of elasticity in health care. Emergency rooms are full of people who are there because it is free for them.

There are enormous numbers of expensive tests which are done, not because the doctor thinks they are needed, but because the are a “defensive” test to protect against lawsuit.

There are excellent health care systems which are much less costly than ours, such as Switzerland, where patients pay regular and minor health care costs, and are required to have one of several approved catastrophic health care insurance plans.

[NorthMountain]

Um no, the "boomers" didn't set up SS, but they were absolutely instrumental in creating Medicare in 1965

"Boomers" (what a ridiculous term!) were not eligible to vote in 1965, much less be elected to Congress.

They were, however, eligible to go fight in Viet Nam ... the older ones, anyway ... the younger ones were a year old.

Generational labeling and stereotyping is an idiot's substitute for rational thought.

[Inyo-Mono]

The boomers had nothing to do with setting up Medicare or SS.

They are the one generation that not only paid into both programs but paid at a much higher rate.

Their parents and grandparents were the people who threw a fit about any of those things being touched. But, now that the Boomers have reached an age where they will be getting back a very SMALL amount of the money they were forced to pay into the system, why they are EVIL.

Exactly right! I'm 76 and paid in a ton of money to SS during over 55 years of work, and now I'm getting some of that back, and I'm still working part time, putting even more money into SS. I'm sick of us Boomers being blamed for everything when we had nothing to do with it.

[HonorInPa]

Wouldn’t that inflow to the stock market create artificial upward pressure on stock prices and thus lower yields?