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Health Care Reform, Revived Economy Best Rx for Social Security, Medicare
Brace yourselves. With today’s release of the Social Security and Medicare trustees’ annual reports showing the nation’s sinking economy has had an impact on the Social Security Trust Fund, doomsayers will be crying for drastic medicine that’s not needed.
The trustees 2009 report on Medicare paints a compelling case for comprehensive health care reform to rein in the skyrocketing health care costs that are driving Medicare closer to the financial brink and weighing down the entire economy.
A closer look at the Social Security 2009 report shows the program continues to run large surpluses and remains capable of paying scheduled benefits in full for the next three decades. The trustees reaffirm that the Social Security system is sound and faces no immediate danger, says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
No doubt, Social Security alarmists and doomsday prognosticators will use these projections to justify dramatic “reforms” such as benefit cuts and raising the retirement age. However, the Social Security system remains structurally sound. Radical changes are not necessary to bridge short-term revenue decreases or to address the program’s long-term solvency.
According to the report, the recession has marginally reduced the size of the Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust funds in the near term, but Social Security continues to run significant surpluses to meet its projected obligations for years to come.
Edward F. Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, says current and future retirees should be “suspicious of sky is falling” predictions because such warnings
mask an ongoing ideological agenda to cut benefits to current and future retirees.
In a statement this afternoon, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) says:
It is not surprising that Social Security’s annual financial picture deteriorates in a downturn….This short-term falloff in revenue has a relatively limited effect on the program’s finances as indicated by the limited movement in the projected date of the Trust Fund’s depletion.
…Retirees and near retirees have lost more than $10 trillion in housing and stock wealth in the last two years. It would be incredibly malicious policy to amplify the impact of these losses by cutting Social Security benefits, especially since people in these age cohorts already paid for these benefits through their Social Security taxes.
But Medicare faces a more troubled future. The costs of the Medicare program are expected to grow fivefold over the next 75 years, driven in large part by surging health care costs.
President Obama repeatedly has said that bringing health care costs under control through comprehensive health care reform is vital to rebuilding the economy. The same holds true for Medicare, says Sweeney.
Skyrocketing Medicare costs cannot be brought under control without national comprehensive health care reform. We urge the president and Congress to move swiftly to address this great crisis.
In a statement accompanying the reports, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said:
The Medicare Trustees Report makes clear today there is no more important long-term fiscal policy measure than gaining control of the growth of Medicare costs by delivering health care services more efficiently. These savings can only be achieved in the context of a larger effort to control health care costs and improve quality more generally.
Says Coyle:
The impact of the recession on the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds underscores the critical need to support President Obama’s plans to reform health care and create a lasting economic recovery. Putting more Americans back to work will send more money into these Trust Funds, and a universal, more efficient health care system will alleviate the severe strain that our health care crisis imposes on both families and employers.
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9 Comments
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Right now Medicare covers the costliest section of the population to insure–the people private insurance companies would prefer not to deal with. Broadening it to include the entire population, would go a long way towards fixing its financial problems, since it would greatly reduce its per capita costs and eliminate the horrendous waste of private insurance.
Scrapping Bush’s Medicare Advantage program–a blatant giveaway to the insurance industry, at taxpayer’s expense–wouldn’t hurt either.
Congress needs to clamp down and get these sleaze balls that are milking the system; doctors, medical supply companies etc. that are bilking millions from the Medicare system. And yes, Bush’s Medicare-(dis)Advantage program should be scrapped.
And for those of you who worry about losing jobs with the insurance companies – consider that single-payer will require a massive increase in employees required to administer Medicare.
What I see missing in the equation is just humongous payouts to insurance execs and CEOs.
Congress, in the past, has stolen 2.5 trillion dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund for pork perks. This needs to be paid back. Congress should have their retirement from Social Security and health care from medicare. Then they would solve the problem.
They should also pay back to S.S. , all the money the government has used for everything else. The money paid into S.S. should never have been used for anything but S.S. Also , I think they should put some kind of a fee on everything that comes into America, from other countries ,and put into S.S. , and Medicare. After all , it is all these jobs that have went overseas, that aren’t paying into S.S. , as well as the companies that send the jobs overseas. It is no wonder why our country is in such bad shape. All our jobs have gone to China, India, and other countries. These jobs, paid taxes to the Fed. Gov’t, states, counties and cities.
It is time for the United States to put Americans first. They always say it is because Americans demand cheap goods. As far as I am concerned they aren’t cheap. And there are much bigger costs to Americans, as everyone can see by the shape the US is in.
Free trade, is not free . It is very expensive to Americans.
Thank you
Has it ever been determined as to how much money was borrowed by our government over the years from the Social Security Trust Fund and not paid back? That should be determined and restored to the fund with interest.
After looting billions for corrupt Wall Street gansters, corrupt banks and after
war-profiteers are given more tens of billions for oil wars, after bringing the public education system nationally to virtual collapse, these bloody gangsters now want to cut back Social Security because their isnt’t enough funding???!!! What lies!!
This totally corrupt system of unregulated “free market” capitalism must come to an end now!
Here is one spark of hope: A socialist is now officially running for mayor of
Detroit!! Read the whole story here! With a picture of the candidate!
SEP candidate certified for Detroit mayoral election
By Jerry White
12 May 2009
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/dart-m12.shtml
The City of Detroit’s Department of Elections has informed Socialist Equality Party candidate D’Artagnan Collier that his name will be placed on the ballot for the August 4 primary election for mayor of Detroit.
…
“I am the only working class, socialist candidate in the mayoral elections. I insist that the auto industry and the banks be taken out of the hands of the billionaire investors and put under the democratic control of working people. Instead of bailing out Wall Street, I insist that billions be poured into rebuilding Detroit and providing decent-paying jobs, health care, housing and education for all.”
A major over haul of pension law is long over due, ERISA is a cruel joke played on the middle class. Rick Wagoner, former chief of General Motors received about $23,000,000.00 and is due about $3.000.000.00 a year pension for the rest of his life, regardless of the out come at GM.
Shouldn’t everyone’s pension be guaranteed at the 100% level? Of course they should! Company pension funds should not be accessible by anyone except the retiree. Companies have proven they are completely unreliable and irresponsible as fiduciaries.
The money should go into a government lock box that can’t be borrowed against and if your company goes bankrupt they don’t have a chance to steal your money and leave the government on the hook to pay you ten cents on the dollar through ERISA.
Former TWA employee of Carl Ichan – I know!
Soacial Security is just another tax, if one looks at it as some in congress does. Social Security for the majority of Americans is the promise to keep retired workers out of poverty
They cannot fix the system by allowing Medicare to continue to bleed the fund. They have to remove the caps for both social security and medicare from the present $106 k all the way up the pay scale and up medicare donations upwards as well.
However, real reform cannot even begin until the folks in Washington “fix” the outsourcing of jobs. The more workers pay in, the more solvent the fund. Basic economic thinking of the first order or “no brainer” in my opinion.
Outsourcing every manufacturing job in sight has only diminished the nation’s tax base and caused some areas of the land to be become third world pockets in our land. Unless fixed, they will continue to undermine the economic health of the land. Of course, Wall street does not agree and with their toadies in congress, continue to not address this issue.
I might also add, that the social security trust fund must never be privatized. Can one imagine the economic woes if Bush did get his privatization when he asked for it?
Alas, they should also consider an universal health care system for all Americans like HR676 instead of the joke reforms currently being circulated by Obama and Baccus. “Insuring” the bottom lines of corporations, HMOs, Insurance companies and drug companies is not the “change we can believe in” reforms voted during the last elections.
Positive insurance reform for both workers and retirees would help fix some of the finantial woes of American faimilies.