Tell Florida's US House Republicans: Hands off Medicare!

[FayeforCure]

Rep. Paul Ryan's 2012 budget proposal was one of the most brutal attacks on the social safety net in decades. And almost all the Republicans in the House joined in by voting for it.*

Paul Krugman called Rep. Ryan's budget bill both "ludicrous" and "cruel." "Ludicrous" because the budget projections were pure fantasy, "cruel" because it proposed massive spending cuts for programs that mainly help children, the poor and the elderly, while slashing taxes for corporations and the ultra-rich.1

One of the main programs targeted by the Ryan budget was Medicare, which under the proposal would be destroyed in all but name, and replaced by a voucher program for seniors who'd be dumped into the private insurance market. And if the vouchers didn't cover the cost of insurance, too bad.

Tell House Republicans: Hands off Medicare.

There is no doubt that something needs to be done to control the increasing cost of Medicare. But the Ryan proposal does nothing to actually control costs.

All the Ryan plan does is shift the cost of health care onto the backs of seniors. And, in fact, by forcing seniors into the inefficient private insurance market, it would actually drive up the cost of providing health care to them.

During the last week, a number of Republicans who voted for this plan have been confronted by their constituents for supporting an end to Medicare while refusing to raise taxes on the rich.

With both the 2012 budget and the debt ceiling fights looming, this type of pushback is really important. They need to hear that they crossed a line. And they need to know that they will be held accountable by their constituents for supporting such extreme proposals.

Tell House Republicans: Hands off Medicare.

* These five Republicans: Reps. Walter Jones (NC-03), David McKinley, Ron Paul (TX-14), Denny Rehberg (MT-AL) and Rep. David Reichert (WA-08) did not vote for the Ryan budget and thus not for destroying Medicare.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/medicare/index2.html

[mtraininjax]

inefficient private insurance market

Besides President Obama having no plan, what other plan is there to resolve Medicare? The government plan, as it stands now is at the moment, $810,236,022,000 and climbing every second. Social Security stands at $709,455,421,000. Guess what is coming, fewer workers to pay into each plan, so you have unfunded liabilities, where is the government going to get the money for the boomers who are retiring? You can complain about Ryan's plan all you want, fact is, he is trying to do something before all government funded plans are bankrupt.

Beginning January 1st, 2011 every single day more than 10,000 Baby Boomers will reach the age of 65.  That is going to keep happening every single day for the next 19 years.

According to one recent survey, 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything at all to retirement savings.

Most Baby Boomers do not have a traditional pension plan because they have been going out of style over the past 30 years.  Just consider the following quote from Time Magazine: The traditional pension plan is disappearing. In 1980, some 39 percent of private-sector workers had a pension that guaranteed a steady payout during retirement. Today that number stands closer to 15 percent, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute in Washington, D.C.

35% of Americans already over the age of 65 rely almost entirely on Social Security payments alone.

Pension consultant Girard Miller recently told California's Little Hoover Commission that state and local government bodies in the state of California have $325 billion in combined unfunded pension liabilities.  When you break that down, it comes to $22,000 for every single working adult in California.

According to a recent report from Stanford University, California's three biggest pension funds are as much as $500 billion short of meeting future retiree benefit obligations.

It has been reported that the $33.7 billion Illinois Teachers Retirement System is 61% underfunded and is on the verge of complete collapse.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Social Security system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes in 2010.  That was not supposed to happen until at least 2016.  Sadly, in the years ahead these "Social Security deficits" are scheduled to become absolutely horrific as hordes of Baby Boomers start to retire.

According to a recent U.S. government report, soaring interest costs on the U.S. national debt plus rapidly escalating spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare will absorb approximately 92 cents of every single dollar of federal revenue by the year 2019.  That is before a single dollar is spent on anything else.

[FayeforCure]

Home Opinion Editorial .Who 'borrowed' the Social Security taxes we paid?
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Font Size:Default font sizeLarger font sizeShare.Posted: Thursday, April 28, 2011 12:15 pm | Updated: 12:44 pm, Thu Apr 28, 2011.

Who 'borrowed' the Social Security taxes we paid? 4 comments

President George W. Bush made a shocking assertion back in 2005 when he was pushing to privatize Social Security. “A lot of people in America think there is a trust,” he said, “that we take your money in payroll taxes and then we hold it for you and then when you retire, we give it back to you. But that’s not the way it works. There is no trust fund â€" just IOUs ….”

Actually, working Americans have paid so much in Social Security payroll taxes during the past three decades that they have built up a $2.6 trillion surplus in the account. That money should make the system strong enough to cover the current level of benefits for the next 26 years. In the interim, a prudent government could restructure the program for the rest of the century, perhaps by means-testing benefits and rejiggering contributions.

But, unfortunately, Bush was right. In 1983, Congress and the Reagan administration adjusted Social Security taxes and benefits to put the program on an even keel that began to build up a huge surplus for investment. But Congress decided to “borrow” the surplus instead of investing. They’ve been using it to help pay for things that have nothing to do with Social Security, things the political establishment and tax-averse Americans wanted but didn’t want to pay for: invasions, education, highway repairs and so on. And, without giving any thought to paying the surplus money back, the federal government has been trading it for special Treasury bonds that politicians used to assure us were safe in a lockbox.

Just IOUs. In a lockbox.

They are, however, IOUs that are supposed to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. So this year, as the Social Security Administration is beginning to fall short of what it needs to pay retiree benefits, it is cashing in $45 billion of the bonds. And because the country is upside down in debt, it has to borrow the $45 billion from China or somewhere else to make older people’s ends meet. Those maneuvers will presumably continue until 2037 unless the system is adjusted in the meantime or Uncle Sam’s credit line runs out.

It would be nice if we could drag the past five presidents and all members of Congress since 1983 into court and squeeze the $2.6 trillion out of them. But we can’t. We elected them, and they did all the borrowing for us. Given the lack of attention we self-governing Americans paid over all those years, we would be wise not to get too huffy about the situation. According to a recent poll conducted for Investor’s Business Daily, only 40 percent of us realize that the Social Security trust fund is composed of IOUs.

So the politicians who engineered this government malpractice get away with telling two radically different stories, both of which are sort of correct.

Republicans say the Social Security program has to borrow money to stay afloat, making it a key part of the national debt crisis. Democrats say Social Security is fully funded with a huge surplus, and so doesn’t contribute to the debt crisis.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on “Meet the Press” the other day that alk about a Social Security financing crisis is “something that is perpetuated by people who don’t like government.”

Perhaps. But that group of people could expand as Congress tackles the debt crisis, everybody gets a peek in the lockbox, and folks in Washington decide whether our Social Security tax payments really have been borrowed, or stolen.

http://www.sentinelsource.com/opinion/editorial/who-borrowed-the-social-security-taxes-we-paid/article_691d6976-e4a1-5d21-96d3-aa8871f86c92.html

I say the money was stolen!!!!

[BridgeTroll]

I say the money was stolen!!!!

We know that Faye...

[acme54321]

I say the money was stolen!!!!

We know that Faye...

LOL

[FayeforCure]

inefficient private insurance market

Besides President Obama having no plan, what other plan is there to resolve Medicare?

mtraininjax, there are actually two approaches to resolve Medicare.

A. On the Operational side: Cut the Fraud and Waste

1. Fraud

Estimates vary widely on the total amount of fraud, but we could easily save $50 billion to 80 billion.

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/46423/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/27/tom-coburn/coburn-says-20-percent-every-medicare-dollar-goes-/

2. Waste

According to a 2008 report by the New England Healthcare Institute, as much as $850 billion spent on medical care each year could be eliminated without reducing the quality of care. Americans undergo more scans (think MRIs and X-rays) than people in any other country - scans that have been linked to increased rates of cancer. Meanwhile, our life expectancy is shorter than in other industrialized countries.

Insured Americans use a lot of health care they don't need. In Medicare, taxpayers foot the bill.

http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/20110502/OPINION01/105020311

B. On its Revenue side: Increase its tax base and/or allow buy-ins by younger healthier Americans

1. Raise the cap on income that is subject to payroll taxes...........anyone making more than $106,800, doesn't pay any payoll taxes on the amount over that figure. So in essence they pay a lower percentage of payroll taxes over their entire income than than say a janitor does.

Including the employee and employer shares of Social Security and Medicare taxes, earners in the middle fifth of the income distribution pay an average effective payroll tax of about 11 percent. In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners pay just 1.5 percent on average.

http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/raising_cap_on_social_security_tax_best_way_to_fix_shortfall/

Currently, taxpayers are taxed only on their first $106,800 in income. Simply requiring upper-income taxpayers to pay the tax on all their income would bring in enough revenue to allow benefits to be raised across the board and still have the program in balance for at least the next 75 years.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/11/scrap_the_cap_on_payroll_taxes.html

2. An influx of younger healthier people into the Medicare system through a Medicare Buy-In program would also help keep Medicare afloat.

That proposal was discussed here:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,11996.0.html

[BridgeTroll]

inefficient private insurance market

Besides President Obama having no plan, what other plan is there to resolve Medicare?

mtraininjax, there are actually two approaches to resolve Medicare.

A. On the Operational side: Cut the Fraud and Waste

1. Fraud

Estimates vary widely on the total amount of fraud, but we could easily save $50 billion to 80 billion.

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/46423/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/27/tom-coburn/coburn-says-20-percent-every-medicare-dollar-goes-/

2. Waste

According to a 2008 report by the New England Healthcare Institute, as much as $850 billion spent on medical care each year could be eliminated without reducing the quality of care. Americans undergo more scans (think MRIs and X-rays) than people in any other country - scans that have been linked to increased rates of cancer. Meanwhile, our life expectancy is shorter than in other industrialized countries.

Insured Americans use a lot of health care they don't need. In Medicare, taxpayers foot the bill.

http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/20110502/OPINION01/105020311

B. On its Revenue side: Increase its tax base and/or allow buy-ins by younger healthier Americans

1. Raise the cap on income that is subject to payroll taxes...........anyone making more than $106,800, doesn't pay any payoll taxes on the amount over that figure. So in essence they pay a lower percentage of payroll taxes over their entire income than than say a janitor does.

Including the employee and employer shares of Social Security and Medicare taxes, earners in the middle fifth of the income distribution pay an average effective payroll tax of about 11 percent. In contrast, the top 1 percent of earners pay just 1.5 percent on average.

http://www.epi.org/analysis_and_opinion/entry/raising_cap_on_social_security_tax_best_way_to_fix_shortfall/

Currently, taxpayers are taxed only on their first $106,800 in income. Simply requiring upper-income taxpayers to pay the tax on all their income would bring in enough revenue to allow benefits to be raised across the board and still have the program in balance for at least the next 75 years.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/11/scrap_the_cap_on_payroll_taxes.html

2. An influx of younger healthier people into the Medicare system through a Medicare Buy-In program would also help keep Medicare afloat.

That proposal was discussed here:

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,11996.0.html

I think these are all solid proposals...

[FayeforCure]

Thanks BT.

Now that Vermont is going single-payer, we also have a new bill to expand Medicare for all:
The American Health Care Security Act of 2011

Don't Cut Medicare, Expand It For All!
by John Nichols

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) addresses a rally on Capitol Hill in Washington. Sanders would like to expand the Medicare program to cover the entire country.



House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan (R-WI), proposes to undermine the integrity of the Medicare and Medicaid programs, with an eye toward enriching the insurance companies that so generously fund his campaigns.

The American people are not amused. They have sent a clear signal that they want to maintain Medicare and Medicaid.

And rightly so. Despite the battering they have taken from misguided and malignant policy makers, the Medicare and Medicaid programs still provide the rough outlines for a single-payer health care program that keep costs down while expanding access to prevention and treatment for millions of Americans.

So, instead of gutting Medicare, as Ryan proposes, why not expand on what works.

That's what Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is proposing.

"The United States is the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care as right to its people. Meanwhile, we spend about twice as much per capita on health care with worse results than others that spend far less," Sanders explained Tuesday, as he announced plans to introduce the American Health Security Act of 2011, which would provide federal guidelines and strong minimum standards for states to administer single-payer health care programs.

"It is time that we bring about a fundamental transformation of the American health care system. It is time for us to end private, for-profit participation in delivering basic coverage. It is time for the United States to provide a Medicare-for-all single-payer health coverage program."

Sanders' plan is the right response to America's health-care crisis â€" and any country where tens of millions of citizens lack health-care coverage, where tends of millions more lack adequate coverage and where costs are skyrocketing because of insurance-company profiteering has a crisis.

Don't get the independent senator wrong. He voted for the health-care reform legislation that passed Congress last year and that was signed by President Obama. He even improved that legislation by fighting to include funding for public-health programs and community clinics.

But Sanders also recognizes flaws in the 2009 reform â€" which, reformers note, keeps the for-profit private health insurance industry at the center of the U.S. health system. And the senator argues that the ultimate cure for what ails American health care is a "Medicare for All" approach that ends the profiteering and focuses on prevention and treatment of disease.

And he is not alone.

Congressman Jim McDermott, the Washington Democrat who has for two decades been one of the House's steadiest backers of real health-care reform, will introduce a parallel bill in that chamber. Says McDermott: "The (2010) health care law made big progress towards covering many more people and finding ways to lower cost. However, I think the best way to reduce costs and guarantee coverage for all is through a Single-payer system like Medicare. This bill does just that - it builds on the new health care law by giving states the flexibility they need to go to a single-payer system of their own. It will also reduce costs, and Americans will be healthier."

The Sanders-McDermott initiative in Washington, comes as the Vermont Legislature has taken steps to make the senator's home state the first in the nation to develop what advocates describe as a state-based variation on the single-payer approach. Sanders applauds the move, and thinks it could serve as a national model. Others agree, while noting that Medicare provides another model.

Sanders and McDermott were joined at the announcement of their new "Medicare for All" push by Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO; Jean Ross, co-president of the National Nurses United; and Greg Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. All three groups are encouraging this fight for real reform.

"Providing a single standard of high quality care for all is a priority for registered nurses who have seen their abilities to act as patient advocates made more difficult as for-profit interests control more patient care decisions," says Ross, whose union has been in the forefront of the fight for single-payer. "We commend Senator Sanders and Representative McDermott for their vision and passion to help registered nurses create a more just healthcare system through the American Health Security Act and applaud our brother and sisters in labor for their support,"

Physicians for a National Health Program, the movement of doctors and medical students for real reform, welcomed the national legislation.

"At a time when the airwaves are filled with talk about cutting or even ending Medicare," said Dr. Garrett Adams, PNHP president, "Senator Sanders has boldly stepped forward with the seemingly paradoxical proposition that the best way to financially strengthen the Medicare program is to upgrade it and expand it to cover everyone."

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/11/136201532/the-nation-dont-cut-medicare-expand-it-for-all

[FayeforCure]

Wow, this one hits home! According to Republicans Seniors are a burden to society! They have no useful value to society. As heartless Rob Woodall (R-GA) told a senior during a townhall meeting when she told him she was about to retire:

"Hear yourself, ma'am. Hear yourself," Woodall told the woman. "You want the government to take care of you, because your employer decided not to take care of you. My question is, 'When do I decide I'm going to take care of me?'"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/23/rob-woodall-on-medicare-take-care-of-me_n_865724.html

Good luck finding that job full-time as a senior! And you better hope you don't have a pre-existing condition as a senior!!!!!

Alan Grayson was on national TV on Friday night, attacking the Ryan Plan to end Medicare. The MSNBC host, Cenk Uygur, asked Grayson to explain why every Republican Presidential candidate has lined up in favor of the Ryan Plan. This is what Grayson said:

AG: “Listen, only 4 percent of all Americans ever vote in a Republican primary. That’s 4 percent. The other 96 percent are the normal Americans. The 4 percent are people who must never get sick, because they don't want to have Medicare. Now think about that. Every other industrialized country in the entire world not only provides health care for its seniors, but health care for everyone.

And the Republican right wing is trying to tell us that somehow we can't afford health care for our seniors. We’ve got 40,000 Americans under the age of 65 who die every year, because they can't afford to see a doctor when they're sick. And now they want to extend that [tragedy] to the most infirmed, most victimized, sickest part of the population, our senior citizens, so that more will die. I honestly believe that if Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck announced one day that they were in favor of the Black Death, you’d see every Republican primary candidate for President go along with it.

CU: (Laughter). You know, it depends. If Obama said, “Hey I’d like to cure the Black Death,” they’d be like, “Oh, I don’t know, the Black Death sounds pretty good.” So, now look, I think they’ve done tremendous damage to themselves. The polls are 70 percent and higher. They’re on your side, Congressman Grayson. They say, “We don’t want you to touch our Medicare.” So what are they doing here? Do they have a plan? You know, is Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, are they doing some sort of strategy that we can't understand? Or are they just plain stupid?

AG: They are tools. It’s that simple. They are tools. You know, George Carlin said it back in 2005, they have made us ignorant, these people who own the country. They have made us ignorant and they have made us poor. And now the next thing they want to do is to take away our Medicare and our Social Security. He said that in 2005, and it's taken six year to make it obvious that that’s true. And God bless them, these Republicans like Ryan, you know, they may be cruel, they may be heartless, but at least they're honest. They’ve told us exactly what they want to do with the power that they have accumulated. They want to take away Social Security and Medicare from our senior citizens.

CU: You know, I think you nailed it. I think what it is, is corporations that have, you know, run amuck. It’s out-of-control greed.

Whether it's the banks with all the risks that they're taking, it’s gonna crash our economy again.

Whether it's the oil companies at the height of being the most profitable companies in the world, they still want to take billions in subsidies from the American taxpayers.

And whether it's these guys trying to cut your Medicare so they can cut taxes for the rich.

I think they got the note from the, you know, the richest people in the country, from the corporations who said: “Hit the gas pedal. We don't give a damn. We're going to out-raise these guys. We're gonna get more money, and this is the time to put ‘em away. Just tell ‘em what you’re going to do. It doesn't matter; we're just going to outspend them during the elections.” I think that's what's happening. Now the problem is they are going to outspend the Democrats in elections, so how do you deal with that problem?

AG: Well, it's apparent now that what these owners want is nothing from the rest of us except for cheap labor. And that makes the senior citizens particularly vulnerable to their plans, because the senior citizens don't work. So from the perspective of the owners of this country, they're useless. Their time in the economy is over and therefore they serve no purpose.

But senior citizens still do vote and they voted in huge numbers in the last election, because the Republicans lied to them, and they told them that the Democrats wanted to take away their Medicare. Now they see that the Democrats are the only ones protecting their Medicare, and Republicans are out to destroy it.

There’s a reason why we call Medicare “an entitlement.” It’s because you're entitled to it. It’s not Medicare any more if you are not entitled to it any more. They want to take away the privilege of Medicare. They want to take away the right to Medicare, and replace it with a piece of paper they know will not be enough to cover the costs of care. And that’s how malevolent they really are.

So I will say to senior citizens of this country: “Now you see the truth. You see their true colors. And the only thing you can do about it is turn out and vote for the only people in this country who are actually trying to protect you and your interests: the Democratic Party.”

CU: Alrighty. Former Democratic Congressman from Florida, Alan Grayson, very clear as always. Thank you so much.