The REAL Fiscal Problem

TheDanold

TheDanold

Unimatrix
The left loves to gabber on about how ending the Iraq war or repealing small tax cuts is going to balance the budget, but they are woefully underestimating what the true giant fiscal problems are and will be way more so in the future.

The 3 biggest threats to a balanced budget and avoiding crushing debt are really:
SS, Medicare and Medicaid.

Currently just those 3 alone take 40% of the budget (compared to a tiny 3% for the Iraq war, which will of course end as all wars do). Those same 3 will rise to 75% of the budget by 2030

"From 2005 to 2030, the 65-and-over population will nearly double to 71 million; its share of the population will rise to 20 percent from 12 percent. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs that serve older people—already exceed 40 percent of the $2.7 trillion federal budget. By 2030, their share could hit 75 percent of the present budget, projects the Congressional Budget Office."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20010728/site/newsweek/?from=rss

We need to raise the age at which people start receiving those 3 programs and cut benefits. The only alternative is tax increases and that kind of income transfer is unsubstainable as it would just be too large and encourage younger people to leave the US.

Push your reps for cuts to those 3 programs and/or raise the age to receive them.
 
Me too although I worry more about the estimated 2 plus trillion cost of the Iraq war. It's cost /benefit ratio is far less than that of medicare, medicaid, etc.

Sounds like you are making a darned good case for single payer health care there Dano.
 
uscitizen said:
Me too although I worry more about the estimated 2 plus trillion cost of the Iraq war. It's cost /benefit ratio is far less than that of medicare, medicaid, etc.
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Uh $2 trillion? The war costs about on average 70$ to $80 billion a year, so to reach $2 trillion it will have to go on for almost 3 decades, so far we are at 4 years. You're just a little short there...

uscitizen said:
Sounds like you are making a darned good case for single payer health care there Dano.
Click to expand...
WHAT?
Part of the problem here is the runaway costs of publicly funded healthcare for the poor and elderly (ie:Medicare/Medicaid). Making government pay for all healthcare would just make the problem that much bigger.
 
Ohh the projected cost of the war to replace equipment, medical costs and such for wounded vets, etc. It is a valid figure and out there.

A lot of the cost of medicare and such is in profits of the drug and medical industry.
 
The real fiscal problem is republicans that pretend they are fiscally conservative and all the dummy idiot republicans that believe them.
 
TheDanold said:
The left loves to gabber on about how ending the Iraq war or repealing small tax cuts is going to balance the budget, but they are woefully underestimating what the true giant fiscal problems are and will be way more so in the future.

The 3 biggest threats to a balanced budget and avoiding crushing debt are really:
SS, Medicare and Medicaid.

Currently just those 3 alone take 40% of the budget (compared to a tiny 3% for the Iraq war, which will of course end as all wars do). Those same 3 will rise to 75% of the budget by 2030

"From 2005 to 2030, the 65-and-over population will nearly double to 71 million; its share of the population will rise to 20 percent from 12 percent. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—programs that serve older people—already exceed 40 percent of the $2.7 trillion federal budget. By 2030, their share could hit 75 percent of the present budget, projects the Congressional Budget Office."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20010728/site/newsweek/?from=rss

We need to raise the age at which people start receiving those 3 programs and cut benefits. The only alternative is tax increases and that kind of income transfer is unsubstainable as it would just be too large and encourage younger people to leave the US.

Push your reps for cuts to those 3 programs and/or raise the age to receive them.
Click to expand...

I really think that they should set the age at which you recieve money from those programs relative to the average expected lifetime. Else there won't be any money for anyone else in the US once the average lifetime hits 100. An amusing anecdote to all of this is that whenever SS first came out people weren't even expected to live to the time that they'd recieve SS. It really was a clever trick. I'm no suggesting that we do that piece of dishonesty. But maybe setting it so that people can expect to get it for the last 5-10 years of their life, instead of the last 50 or so, makes humanitarian and fiscal sense.
 
TheDanold said:
Uh $2 trillion? The war costs about on average 70$ to $80 billion a year, so to reach $2 trillion it will have to go on for almost 3 decades, so far we are at 4 years. You're just a little short there...


WHAT?
Part of the problem here is the runaway costs of publicly funded healthcare for the poor and elderly (ie:Medicare/Medicaid). Making government pay for all healthcare would just make the problem that much bigger.
Click to expand...

Dano, why does France pay about 10% of their budget for universal healthcare, and we pay about 20%? France's budget is like 20% larger per capita, but that clearly doesn't make up for it. Maybe it's our stupid hybrid system, that does little but line the pockets of insurance companies?
 
uscitizen said:
Me too although I worry more about the estimated 2 plus trillion cost of the Iraq war. It's cost /benefit ratio is far less than that of medicare, medicaid, etc.

Sounds like you are making a darned good case for single payer health care there Dano.
Click to expand...

That depends on how you valuate not being killed by terrorists.
 
Watermark said:
Dano, why does France pay about 10% of their budget for universal healthcare, and we pay about 20%? France's budget is like 20% larger per capita, but that clearly doesn't make up for it. Maybe it's our stupid hybrid system, that does little but line the pockets of insurance companies?
Click to expand...

Because we subisidize r&d for the entire world and we have an out of control tort system. And it's also problematic that deals are done between employers and medical companies, instead of with the employees themselves.

These three things:

1.Forcing the rest of the world to pay their share of r&d,
2 reforming malpractice tort,
3 and introducing individual comparison shopping on a per proecedure basis to the consumer would take care of a lot of problems.

I know part of the neo-fascist plan is to outsource all jobs, thus leaving americans dependant on the state apparatus (aka screwed), but fuck that.
 
From all I have malpractice suits costs about maybe 2% of our total medical care costs. You think we would see any reductions or just another 2 % profit for the medical industry ?
 
uscitizen said:
From all I have malpractice suits costs about maybe 2% of our total medical care costs. You think we would see any reductions or just another 2 % profit for the medical industry ?
Click to expand...
Profit has been in healthcare in America for hundreds of years, it is nothing new.
What is new is the ability and ease and larger settlements with tort lawsuits.
Ask any doctor what is the cost that is causing them to increase prices the most and they will respond malpractice insurance.

"Kamat said he is moving "exclusively because of malpractice insurance costs." He said his own insurance premiums have gone up 500 percent in two years."
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10195305

It's the oldest leftwing trick in the book to blame profit (which TRUE fiscal Conservatives never do by the way), it is simply false. You don't see insurance companies raising rates for life insurance by anything barely at all. Why? Because they do not have the escalating problems with lawsuits.
 
yeah tort reform. Our republican govt in KY did that. Now a kid that had both feet severed on an amusement park ride is limited to 200K settlement.....

Tort reform (screw the little guy) sucks!
 
If dano has a terrible accident in KY that leaves him debilitated for life with a settlement that will not cover the cost of a lifetime of care for said injury, I wonder how he'll feel about tort reform then.
 
It's interesting to note that Dano characterizes the expenditure for Iraq as "tiny."

I'll have to remember that the next time he's complaining about some environmental initiative or medical research funding proposal that comes in at a small fraction of the cost of Iraq.
 
Onceler said:
It's interesting to note that Dano characterizes the expenditure for Iraq as "tiny."

I'll have to remember that the next time he's complaining about some environmental initiative or medical research funding proposal that comes in at a small fraction of the cost of Iraq.
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Ohh a half trillion here a half trillion there pretty soon you are talking real money :)
 
ib1yysguy said:
If dano has a terrible accident in KY that leaves him debilitated for life with a settlement that will not cover the cost of a lifetime of care for said injury, I wonder how he'll feel about tort reform then.
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And why would I be in Kentucky, to beat some sense into bscitizen? Dumbass.

No one is talking about not having lifetime coverage for debilitation. That was always taken care of fine in the 80's and before then. The reality is since the Patients Rights Act and other legislation put forth by Liberal Dems (and pushed by their trial lawyers allies who is the party's number ONE group donor), it has become ridiculously easy to sue and scope of awards also ridiculously high (some family received over a billion from GM for burn injuries as one outregeous example).
Another problem is shopping around for the best court to hear lawsuits, where people decide to sue in Liberal areas (the worst was some Chicago neighborhood) because that is where statiscally they get the highest awards and best chance of winning.

Obviously profit has been around for ever and is largely the same, but malpractice insurance rates are increasing by a few hundred percent for many doctors.
 
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