Obamacare's Medicare Scam

I don't think you read or understood what I wrote and linked you to. The entitlement programs are unsustainable. They must be reformed. The Reps are trying to hold harmless those who are 55 or older. That may or may not work.

If the entitlement programs are not reformed, they will consume the entire federal budget, i.e., all tax revenue. Anyone who thinks we can get out of this mess without great pain doesn't understand the problem. In Greece, they cut their government pensions by 20% for existing retirees and reduced the minimum wage by half. You wouldn't believe what is in their austerity budget. We would be in the streets too with such cuts. The longer we wait, the more draconian the measures will be.

Sorry, but your anecdotal stories don't cut it. We have 10,000 baby boomers retiring every day for the next 20 years. By 2030 one in every five Americans will be 65 or older, twice what it is now.

In 1950 we had 16 workers for every retiree; today it is 3.3; and by 2030 it will 2. This is why the entitlement programs are considered to be Ponzi schemes. Most of us retired today have gotten back much more than we put into the system. I have a federal pension. I have received back more than 10 times what I contributed and I just turned 69. I also get SS with a similar payback. This can't continue.

Why don't you read the link I provided to you, "Why SS is a Ponzi scheme" from Forbe's magazine. We are headed down the same road as Europe. We are witnessing the collapse of the welfare state. The Left wants to keep it going a little longer by increasing taxes, but eventually they will run out of other people's money. We can't continue to borrow 42 cents out of every federal dollar spent. We are in deep trouble. The government can't deliver on its promises.

I’m not even drawing social security yet, but I’m already responsible for four more that are paying in besides myself and another four soon to be contributing. lmao

So why is SS paying out more than it is taking in?

Sara:

The people who got in the system before you and me already spent our money.

All of it.

And the money that those a few years younger than us paid in, too.

We aren't getting our money back. Not unless the next President is a magic dwarf who can spin straw into gold.

Sooner that all Americans of all generations accept this fact, the easier the system will be to fix.

At a minimum SS and Medicare have to be reformed. I have not suggested they be "phased out." There is no political will to do so. We need to change the programs to make them sustainable. I would like them to be privatized to a greater degree.

SS is fairly easy to reform. We can make some slight changes to the computation and COLA formulae to make it sustainable. I favor personal accounts that will allow personal wealth accummulation and be less subject to government whim and blackmail. It would be supplemented by a small defined benefit program for survivors and the disabled. We should avoid the Faustian bargain, kick the can down the road solution that Reagan and Tip O'Neill reached in 1983 when SS went into the red.

Medicare is far more difficult to solve and will be more painful. It is also more lethal to the fiscal survival of this nation. There are a number of proposals to turn the cost arc downward. Without getting into the weeds, there is no doubt that medical care will have to be rationed in some way in the future. We have three entities that could act as the main instrument for rationing, i.e., the government, the insurance companies, or the individual. I favor the individual. Only when the customer is given the control over the resources and can link costs to the quality and need for services will the marketplace be allowed to work like it should. Right now, under Medicare, there is no incentive for someone to worry about costs. Someone else pays for most of the costs whether it is the USG or the insurance companies. 9 out of 10 people on Medicare have supplementary insurance.

The longer we wait to resolve these problems, the greater the likelihood that we will "yank" them away.

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