AS Americans listened to people yammer on about "death panels" and other distortions of some of the health "reform" proposals circulating in Congress, larger and more important questions have gone unasked and unanswered.
First on the list should be: Are members of Congress out of touch with reality?
The nation can't pay for Social Security and the health entitlement programs it has now.
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees Reports for 2009, released in early May, laid out the situation plainly:
Social Security and Medicare have a combined unfunded liability of almost $107 trillion.
According to Pamela Villarreal, a senior policy analyst with the National Center for Policy Analysis, that's about seven times the size of the American economy, and 10 times as much as today's national debt.
Members of Congress have, over the decades, promised Americans $107 trillion more in benefits under these two existing programs over the next 75 years than they have provided for in taxes.
Medicare alone has an unfunded liability of almost $38 trillion.
By some people's reckoning, when today's college students reach retirement in about 2054, the burden of paying Social Security and Medicare benefits would consume one in three dollars of taxable payroll.
Yet some in Congress would create a costly new medical entitlement program to deflect attention from the fact that they don't want to deal with the problems they already face.
All responsible Americans should insist on better than that.
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I would be ok with the government causing inflation by printing money to fund Social Security , seeing as that's a social contract with the people that ought to remain unbroken.
ReplyDeleteOf course, that's not how it's going to go. Instead they will print money not to fund social security but to fund the war machine and bail out big business, then they will say 'we have no money'.
'For the people, by the people, of the people'
Right.
Measured in US dollars. If you factor in globalization, and the medical costs of US-level medical care in India (and China), there is NO reason for US medical costs to be rising.
ReplyDeleteWe already have cable laid to India and China. x-rays could already be shipped there to be read. With the advent of DaVinci surgical systems, we need to explore the costs of surgery performed in India (and China) and ask when does Intuitive Surgical help lower the cost of US surgeries? Yeah, if the patient is in the operating room in the US and the surgeon is in India, someone does need to be in the operating room in the US, preferably a US surgeon. Once you open Pandora's box of globalization, nothing goes back in the same way.
Poster9:45 I don't trust the food from China they intentionally poison us. You honestly believe a person from that country will give you an honest, trusted opinion on your xray? The Chinese are ready to blow us up forget health participation!
ReplyDeleteFrom India : I said it was "Cancer" not "can't hear"..Christ they can't give you the correct info on American Express can you imagine an xray?
ReplyDeleteStop worrying. Once the US defaults on its debts then it won't be able to pay for its Social Security commitments as well. And a lot of folks won't be around to claim for those benefits. They simply would have gone "out of business" (a friendly word for being dead).
ReplyDeleteNo kidding - forced retirement of sorts.
ReplyDeleteOne guy on TV was talking about stocking up on contractor sized think 5mm garbage bags to seal up the dead bodies in your neighborhood, on your lawn, etc. Think happy thoughts!
As previously reported, the US has NO $$. It's Debt of over $100 trillion PLUS SS PLUS Medicare! Even if SS were to continue to be funded, and it won't cause the US will declare very soon it can not pay its bills, the money would be worthless, you could not buy one loaf of bread on your monthly SS check, coming very soon!
ReplyDeleteAnd I do not think the 5mm would be thick enough, as animals have to eat too you know?
I think our nation needs to go back to its Christian roots and seek the Lord for guidence as our goverment has failed us we need a deep sense of community and a willingness to help each other out during these times of great distress that seems to be comeing on our nation.
ReplyDelete