Posted on 05/20/2009 9:48:23 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Just like the SS ponzi scheme.
So the Feds steal money from my paycheck and my employer’s pocket. Then, I retire and medical insurance is priced out of sight, so it’s my fault for signing up - and paying, again - for Medicare.
Why don’t we just keep stealing the money and “Soylent Green” everyone over the retirement age? We can start in Congress.
Lyndon Johnson created the mess!
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
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—another one of the ticking time bombs—louder and louder—
Reitrees that have more money than they know what to do with should NOT be on Medicare. If you can retire to a fancy area and live on the golf course, travel around the world, etc., then pay for your own insurance.If, like my own mother, you are a widow or widower and live on social security ONLY, then one indeed has a right to file for Medicare. JMHO
HAHAHAHA....got to send this to some geezers I know who voted for Obambi.....HAHAHAHAHA
-—Karl Marx would put it exactly that way, too—
I don’t have any sympathy...it was the dumbles who required everyone to participate in this boondoggle.
Now you get commentary like that Harvard person acting all surprised that it is working as intended.
You idjits wouldn’t let people opt in or opt out. Oh no...can’t have that...the system wouldn’t work if there was a choice, we were told.
Now you want to moan about the cost.
[spit]
Exactly. People who can afford to pay for their own insurance should be able to do so.
So, you're saying that state health care - which taxpayers have been forced to pay into for decades of their working lives - should be needs-tested. Thus, someone who had paid into the fund for decades might get NOTHING, if he was relatively affluent (read: had scrimped and saved a large chunk of his disposable income), while someone else who had paid little or nothing into the system, but HAD frittered away their money, and was thus now penniless, WOULD be eligible for benefits, merely because they are now poor.
That does not jibe with my view of self-reliance and economic freedom.
Regards,
I caught this on Stossel’s 20/20 episode a few weeks back. (Glad I finally got to see a Stossel report. They don’t write up usually if he’ll be featured.)
I’m so sick of the entire communist Ponzi scheme of EVERYthing.
To be fair, I think the main point was simply that if you had to choose, it’s absurd that well-off people get the benefits of something that’s supposed to be for supporting those in need in their twilight years.
Your (correct) point of view assumes they’re simply getting back what they’re owed from paying in (just like SS, which is logical). But as this story relays, the problem is they’re not simply paying back what is owed. It’s a Ponzi scheme because in reality there was no “savings account” to simply give back to those who paid in; it’s merely paid out randomly (if you will) from current monies from current payers.
The problem with means testing isn't at the ends of the spectrum, but in the middle. The very rich don't get hurt too much. And the very poor are better off.
But somewhere in the middle is the guy who now has to pay for both the poor guys medicare and save for his own medical insurance. This guy gets hit hard.
When you do means testing this way, you get absurdly high marginal tax rates at the places where the means testing starts falling off. Make a dollar more, and you get 50 cents less in medicare coverage and you now have a 50% addition to your base tax rate. What will happen is that the guy in the middle will be wise to blow his remaining money on good times, and fall back into SS & medicare once he's poor enough. What a great way to split us into rich and poor classes!
This article fails to note that the only reason most people can take out more than they put into Medicare (or SS) is that those at the top end of the scale put in ever so much more than they take out, not to mention the folks who don't live long enough to take anything out.
It's a simple actuarial fact that most people who take money out of any insurance plan, get to take out more than they take in. Between compound interest and folks not making it to the payout date, the survivors win. With the sliding rate on SS/Medicare, its the poor that win. The rich lose unless they live a very long and un-healthy life.
Yet somehow, with the rich already getting the short end of the stick, you think it's fair to further shaft them.
Thank you for your reasonable reply.
However, I would say that it is equally absurd that anyone should be forced to pay into a system, and then be disbarred from enjoying its benefits, merely because they have been thrifty throughout their lives.
Only charity should be means-tested.
Regards,
The whole system does not jibe with self-reliance and economic freedom. I had much rather put the money I pay into SS into private accounts that actually draw interest and have a real retirement account. However, the ones in power will never let that happen. So with your idea, we will continue to put everyone that turns 65 on Medicare and go broke where NO ONE will have Medicare within a few years. Then what??
Is that supposed to be an answer to a serious problem? Should we just kill off everyone when they turn 60 or 50 or even 40?
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