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Medicare funding runs short by 2024, trustees say
CNN ^ | April 23rd 2012 | Jeanne Sahadi

Posted on 04/23/2012 3:17:14 PM PDT by KantianBurke

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Highlighting the fiscal problems posed by growing health costs and an aging population, the trustees of Medicare estimated Monday that the program will only be able to pay a portion of promised benefits starting in 2024. That's the same year the trustees had estimated a year ago.

Every year the Medicare trustees, who also oversee Social Security, release an annual report on both programs' long-term financial outlook. Unless Congress makes changes to Medicare, or overall health costs come down, Medicare will only be able to pay 87% of expected costs by 2024 and 67% by 2050.

Put another way, if lawmakers wanted to make the program solvent over the next 75 years, they would need to raise the 2.9% Medicare tax on all wages to 4.25%.

(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government
KEYWORDS: medicare; tnstaafl
The solution is simple but unpopular when it comes to taming the entitlement crisis- cut benefits, raise taxes or a combo of both. End of story.
1 posted on 04/23/2012 3:17:19 PM PDT by KantianBurke
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To: KantianBurke

I am beside myself with shock.

/sarc


2 posted on 04/23/2012 3:19:18 PM PDT by Lucky9teen (Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.~Thomas Jeffer)
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To: KantianBurke

3 posted on 04/23/2012 3:19:42 PM PDT by KantianBurke (Where was the Tea Party when Dubya was spending like a drunken sailor?)
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To: Lucky9teen

Nothing the old Bufffet rule couldn’t fix! *rolleyes*


4 posted on 04/23/2012 3:24:33 PM PDT by corlorde (NH)
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To: KantianBurke

The sad truth is, about half the country simply doesn’t care. They don’t care about any of these mid/long term disasters awaiting us. They simply do not care. As long as they get their money right now and can live for the moment on other people’s dime, roughly 50% of what we call the American public doesn’t give a darn about stuff like this.


5 posted on 04/23/2012 3:32:22 PM PDT by Longbow1969
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To: KantianBurke
It'll be 2 years that they're giving away billions in SS dollars via the 2% tax cut. While it surely put money into the economy, it was just another way to justify the new trillion debt level.

Scr** me know...scr** me later..but don't tell me this was a solution.

6 posted on 04/23/2012 3:42:12 PM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: KantianBurke
Medicare is the most poorly run program in the history of the world. There is no relation between the cost of a service and what Medicare pays. It is because of Medicare and Medicaid that our health care system is so screwed up, since they now pay about half of all health care costs in this country.

I met a guy on a cruise in Australia a few years ago (he was Australian) that had made 10s of millions of dollars selling those motorized wheel carts to Medicare. He was buying them in China and Taiwan for about 800 dollars and selling them to Medicare for about 5000. He bought as many as he possibly could and made a fortune until our idiot government finally figured out they were paying too much.

Come to think of it, maybe I should do something similar so I can retire early.
7 posted on 04/23/2012 4:04:16 PM PDT by microgood
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ELECTION year time for threats..
always try to scare the old folks..right now the things that make me scared is the cost of fuel, gasoline, and food to survive and the threat that we won’t be allowed to have a ‘home garden’..

VOTE HIM OUT IN NOVEMBER FRIENDS.


8 posted on 04/23/2012 4:31:30 PM PDT by haircutter
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To: KantianBurke

Shut it down. Give back the money to “free” people who were FORCED to pay into it. Apologize to them.

Otherwise, like all other happy-faced, socialist-schemes, it will remain solvent via an increase in dead Americans...specifically seniors.

Johnsoncare/Hillarycare/Romneycare/Obamacare/Totalitariancare


9 posted on 04/23/2012 4:33:52 PM PDT by PGalt
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To: PGalt
Give back the money to “free” people

What money?

You mean create more Baraqqi/Bernanke minibucks?

10 posted on 04/23/2012 4:38:18 PM PDT by nascarnation
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To: nascarnation

“What money?”

Good point. Shut it down. Stop confiscating money from “free” people.

Johnsoncare/Hillarycare/Romneycare/Obamacare/Totalitariancare

“Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.” - Bastiat

“All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism.” - Bastiat

“Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.” - Bastiat

Socialism’s plunder...

http://www.usdebtclock.org/


11 posted on 04/23/2012 5:07:23 PM PDT by PGalt
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To: PGalt

I agree with everything that you said except that we are a free people. It’s been decades since that was true, if really it ever was.

Obama is preparing a nasty surprise for seniors. He is going to destroy their Medicare Advantage plans, but they won’t find out about it until after the election. Then they will be stuck in a purely socialist, government health care system. Hope the AARP likes that.


12 posted on 04/24/2012 4:36:08 AM PDT by Pining_4_TX ( The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else. ~)
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To: Pining_4_TX
It’s been decades since that was true...

Agree 100%, Pining_4_TX. Thanks for posting.

13 posted on 04/24/2012 1:04:15 PM PDT by PGalt
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To: Pining_4_TX; All; jazusamo

Speaking of Medicare Advantage...have you seen the latest tactic...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2876001/posts

Thanks to FReeper jazusamo for posting.

Tactics of Totalitarians BUMP!


14 posted on 04/24/2012 1:11:29 PM PDT by PGalt
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