Why Ryan is right about Medicare.

Socrtease

Socrtease

Verified User
Hard as it is for me to say, the guy at least has the gravitas to talk about an issue that is going to overtake us very soon.

In April 2010, the Census Bureau reported that there were 40.3 million people over the age of 65 in US. That was up 5.3 million from 2000. They represent 13% of the overall US population. In 1965 when Medicare was established that number was more than half of what it is now. Even more incredible, the number of adults expected to be over the age of 65 in 2030 will be 72 million, almost 1 in 5 Americans. All these people are going to be living longer as well. In 2003 if you reached your 60th birthday you could expect to live an additional 22 years, on average, considering the ages of death for both men and women. There is no way in hell the working population is going to be able support that many people on Medicare and Social Security. Something has to be done. I don't know if the voucher system is the right way to do it. I have always supported means testing for Social Security. When my maternal grandparents reached age 65, they owned there own house, they owned their own car. My grandfather had retired from the Atomic Regulatory Commission, with a fat pension, and health insurance. At the point my grandfather went to a nursing home, his private investments were seeing a quarterly return of almost 50k. They didn't need social security but my grandfather would bitch every year about the COLA. At the rate we are going larger and larger percentages of revenues are going to have be used just keep old people alive and healthy. Ryan's plan may or may not be the best one, but at least he is trying to deal with the issue.



http://www.agingstats.gov/Main_Site/Data/2012_Documents/Population.aspx
http://money.usnews.com/money/retirement/articles/2012/01/09/65-and-older-population-soars
http://aging.senate.gov/crs/aging1.pdf
 

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While I applaud the guy for discussing a difficult issue, and bringing up a politically deadly issue. We owe it to our elders to honor the commitment we made to them. Even if it means raising taxes, they should get what they paid for.
 
Socrtease said:
Hard as it is for me to say, the guy at least has the gravitas to talk about an issue that is going to overtake us very soon.

In April 2010, the Census Bureau reported that there were 40.3 million people over the age of 65 in US. That was up 5.3 million from 2000. They represent 13% of the overall US population. In 1965 when Medicare was established that number was more than half of what it is now. Even more incredible, the number of adults expected to be over the age of 65 in 2030 will be 72 million, almost 1 in 5 Americans. All these people are going to be living longer as well. In 2003 if you reached your 60th birthday you could expect to live an additional 22 years, on average, considering the ages of death for both men and women. There is no way in hell the working population is going to be able support that many people on Medicare and Social Security. Something has to be done. I don't know if the voucher system is the right way to do it. I have always supported means testing for Social Security. When my maternal grandparents reached age 65, they owned there own house, they owned their own car. My grandfather had retired from the Atomic Regulatory Commission, with a fat pension, and health insurance. At the point my grandfather went to a nursing home, his private investments were seeing a quarterly return of almost 50k. They didn't need social security but my grandfather would bitch every year about the COLA. At the rate we are going larger and larger percentages of revenues are going to have be used just keep old people alive and healthy. Ryan's plan may or may not be the best one, but at least he is trying to deal with the issue.



http://www.agingstats.gov/Main_Site/Data/2012_Documents/Population.aspx
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Your post is entirely premised on the false assumption that Obama doesn't have a plan that generates the same savings in Medicare as Ryan's plan without turning it into a shitty voucher program (that, surprise, will enrich big business) and instead keeps it as it is now, albeit with a change in focus to pay for quality of care.

The Ryan "plan" does a few things: (1) it keeps all of the cost savings contained in the Affordable Care Act (2) it caps Medicare spending at GDP+0.5% and (3) assumes that the voucher program will achieve those spending levels through the introduction of competition.

Obama's plan (adopted into law through the ACA) contains numbers (1) and (2) above. Where it differs is how to achieve those cost savings. Instead of relying on the magic of the invisible hand and competition, the Affordable Care Act achieves its savings through quality control measures.

Read about it in more detail here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-houses-medicare-plan-isnt-that-hard-to-find/
 
Jarod said:
While I applaud the guy for discussing a difficult issue, and bringing up a politically deadly issue. We owe it to our elders to honor the commitment we made to them. Even if it means raising taxes, they should get what they paid for.
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Agreed, besides, Soc's comments about SS is an urban legend. It doesn't start runnign deficits for over 20 years and even then by simply increasing the payroll tax 1 to 2% or lifting the payroll tax cap, fixes the SS shortfall. I'm not about to get into a dither and panic about reforming SS and play into the hands of Wallstreet gamblers who'd piss it all away.
 
Jarod said:
While I applaud the guy for discussing a difficult issue, and bringing up a politically deadly issue. We owe it to our elders to honor the commitment we made to them. Even if it means raising taxes, they should get what they paid for.
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The Ryan Plan has nothing to do with many of your elders. It's basically a cynical ploy for today's seniors and near retirees to shit on their kids and grandkids.
 
Nobody seems to realize the reason the Social Security Trust Fund is in the shape it is today is because Bush stole the funds to fight two unnecessary wars.
 
What the census numbers show is that in 20 years less people are going to be working to support more people, almost twice as many as we are now. Something has to give.
 
Socrtease said:
What the census numbers show is that in 20 years less people are going to be working to support more people, almost twice as many as we are now. Something has to give.
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Twenty years is a long time away, people will also be working longer, and healthier longer.
 
SS is solvent...and will continue to be solvent with a tweak or two...why buy the shit that's being shoveled. Do you also think our country is bankrupt? Do you think it's reasonable to force the post office to fund their retirement for 75 years then beat them for not being cost effective so it can be privatized? This is all smoke and mirrors and it amazes me that people fall for it.
 
Jarod said:
Twenty years is a long time away, people will also be working longer, and healthier longer.
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People are living longer. Sure, at age 65 they are healthier now than they were in 1965, but as they get older, their health problems become bigger and more costly. we are going to get to the point were people live longer as non-productive seniors than they did as non-productive children.
 
To make this work, the retirement age is going to have to go to 67 in the short term, and 70-72 in the long run. Neither program was designed to take care of 70 million people into their 80's.
 
Socrtease said:
What the census numbers show is that in 20 years less people are going to be working to support more people, almost twice as many as we are now. Something has to give.
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Sure, you either have to raise taxes or reduce benefits. SS I'm not including because it's not the fiscal solvency issues that Medicare and Defense have.

Look, here's the adult conversation Republicans DON'T want to have. You can have medicare at current levels of spending and we can have defense at current levels of spending and we can have tax rates at current levels but you only get to pick two of those. Cuase, if you have defense and medicare spending at current levels you'll have to raise taxes. If you have defense spending at current levels and tax rates at current levels you'll have to decrease spending on medicare and if you keep medicare spending at current rates and tax rates at current levels you'll have to decrease defense spending.

Until both sides realize that it will probably be a combination of spending cuts on medicare and defense and tax increases needed to fix our fiscal situation then they are not prepared to have an adult conversation.

Hell we can go a long way towards fiscal health by just permitting the irresponsible Bush era tax cuts to expire.

What we really need to do with medicare is focus on costs. The ACA's focus on quality is the correct approach. A lot of money going into Medicare each year is wasted on uneeded procedures and modalities. A ton of money can be saved by not paying for modalities and procedures or questionable or unproven quality that we currently pay for.
Defense is going to be hard too as we just can't seem to rid our military of it's Cold War era mentality. Our military is still preparing for a mission which is no longer valid and the American pubic is paying a staggering price.
DOD needs to redefine it's mission and quit using the taxpayers as their own personal career spring boards and jobs programs.

As for the revenue side, if tax increases are required to keep medicare solvent then fire away. It wouldn't take that great of an increase to do that. It would take even far, far less to address SS solvency issues.

Medicare and SS are not insoluble issues if they are addressed soon but it has to be done soon and it has to be done in a fair manner in which the promises that have been made to our seniors will be kept.
 
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Jarod said:
One unnecessary war, in my opinion.
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I used to think that too. Not anymore...

Socrtease said:
People are living longer. Sure, at age 65 they are healthier now than they were in 1965, but as they get older, their health problems become bigger and more costly. we are going to get to the point were people live longer as non-productive seniors than they did as non-productive children.
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Oh. Don't worry about them. Once the insurance bought with insufficient vouchers runs out, they'll all die off anyhow. Isn't that want you want???
 
Socrtease said:
To make this work, the retirement age is going to have to go to 67 in the short term, and 70-72 in the long run. Neither program was designed to take care of 70 million people into their 80's.
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Like hell they aren't. Hell we wouldn't even be having this conversation about SS if the payroll tax cap had been indexed for inflation. As for increasing retiremen age. Screw that!! The full SS retirement age is all ready 67 if you were born after 1960. That's plenty long and most people who work as laborers won't be able to physically perform the high paying construction and hard labor jobs they work much past the age of 60. We can make SS solvent for the next 100 years and beyond by increasing the payroll tax cap from 110,000 to $150,000 and then indexing it for inflation. This is not a hard fix.

Medicare and medicaid cost are not sustainable due more to the high cost of health care in general in our Nation. Addressing the issues which cause our system to be so rediculously expensive and inneficient will go a long way towards reducing over all costs. Increasing the qualification age for medicare just makes the problem worse cause then you place large numbers of people outside the health care system who do not have the resources to pay for a serious illness, are at the time in life where on is most likely to be expected and who warked hard and paid their dollars into a system that gaurenteed them this would not be a worry for them in their golden years.
 
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Mott the Hoople said:
Like hell they aren't. Hell we wouldn't even be having this conversation about SS if the payroll tax cap had been indexed for inflation.
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Yet your messiah decided to reduce the SS payroll tax by 2% for everyone. I wonder what that will do to the solvency of SS. I wonder what will happen when someone decides it is time to put it back in place? I can already hear the left screaming 'they want to raise taxes on the poor and middle classes!!!'
 
Superfreak said:
Yet your messiah decided to reduce the SS payroll tax by 2% for everyone. I wonder what that will do to the solvency of SS. I wonder what will happen when someone decides it is time to put it back in place? I can already hear the left screaming 'they want to raise taxes on the poor and middle classes!!!'
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No actually that will be you and your ilk.
 
Haiku said:
No actually that will be you and your ilk.
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Sorry, but you clearly do not understand my position on the issue. I think it was a huge mistake to have made tax cuts to SS to begin with given its already underfunded status and the need to actually raise more revenues for SS. I think the 2% should be added back immediately. In addition there should be a donut hole created where income above $500k gets hit with 2% SS taxes as well (which should come close to closing the shortfall in SS)
 
Superfreak said:
Yet your messiah decided to reduce the SS payroll tax by 2% for everyone. I wonder what that will do to the solvency of SS. I wonder what will happen when someone decides it is time to put it back in place? I can already hear the left screaming 'they want to raise taxes on the poor and middle classes!!!'
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Actually, it does nothing to the solvency of SS.
 
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