In case you don't know why your mom's or grandma's Social Security and Medicare benefits are being used as puppets in Washington's budget and election season debates: 1.) Our government has a spending problem (which you probably know by now) and 2.) Our population is aging. Baby Boomers started turning 65 this year, and you may have heard from Republican presidential hopefuls that there won't be enough workers in coming decades to support the retirements and health needs of 70+ million Baby Boomers. Today's pressing problem is that there isn't enough money in the accounts to pay out 70 million checks to expectant older, disabled, and veteran beneficiaries, causing President Obama to request a raise in the nation's debt limit.
Before you call The White House or your Congressional leaders to complain or offer your suggestion, stop and gain some perspective. Ask yourself: Who is responsible for taking care of our veterans, our disabled, and our older people? For veterans, there is little question that we all owe them and their families for their service fighting our wars -- not just our current wars -- but the ones we have fought over the last century. (Frank Buckles, the last surviving American WWI veteran, died in February at the age of 110.)
But what about the deservingness of the disabled and elderly? Himself disabled by polio, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935. When Social Security was enacted, there were 7.8 million people age 65+ in this country, and life expectancy for a 65 year male retiree was another 13 years. Its original goals were to provide income security for workers who would live beyond their working years. In 1939, spouses and children of retirees, as well as family members surviving when the beneficiary died were added. Benefits were extended to the disabled in 1956.
The Social Security ideal was that if people cannot work due to old age or disability, or due to an employer's perception that they are too old, then the government should step in provide for their financial needs. In 1967, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) made it illegal for an employer to terminate a worker between the age of 40 and 65 due to their age. ADEA's upper age limit was changed to 70 in 1978, meaning that employers could fire workers older than 70. In 1986, at the age of 75, President Reagan eliminated the upper age limit. This removed the inability-to-work issue from the deservingness rationale for Social Security. Today, all employees are allowed by law to work as long as they please. Therefore, based on the Social Security ideal, the government would not be required to take care of them just because they are older. The age eligibility for Social Security has already increased. By 2027, all workers will need to be 67 before they are eligible to receive the benefits we have come to expect. However, remember that Social Security is not only for retired workers.
More than one quarter of all American households have a member receiving Social Security benefits. While 38 million beneficiaries are retired workers or surviving older dependents, 1/3 of beneficiaries are younger than age 65, a total of 22 million people. Three million children under 18 receive Social Security benefits because their parent workers have retired, become disabled, or died.
When Social Security was enacted, it was assumed that once old age set in, illness and disability would follow. Thirty years later, when Medicare was enacted by President Johnson in 1965, the rationale for it was that if a person cannot get health insurance because of old age or illness, the government should provide the coverage. Similar rationale supports the Affordable Care Act's goal of insuring people younger than 65.
By 2014, Medicare expenditures of $736 billion are expected to bypass Social Security's $694 billion. The questions remain: Who is responsible for taking care of the aging, sick, and disabled Americans? If the government is not responsible, then who is? Should they take care of themselves? Should their families absorb the cost of caring for them? How about neighbors for people who have no family, or religious institutions?
Furthermore, should people who don't depend on their Social Security benefits or on their Medicare refrain from accepting it? In other words, should these entitlements we have come to expect be reserved only for those who truly need it? If your mom or grandma doesn't need her monthly check from the government, how would she and you feel about turning it down? Going without her monthly check may make her tap into your inheritance and change her income tax status. Inheritance and taxes! Do estate taxes affect the budget and the deficit? That's a hot political question for another day ... or is it?
Medicare, should be expanded to allow 55+ buy in, expands premium base and helps to stabilize the system, Medicare should also change payment system to a bonus system tied to Best Out Comes.
Bonuses should be paid for results, not fee for service basis. Poor results = lower payments to provider, better outcomes result in higher payments. HHS should develop a system which rates all providers for such a bonus system. The data base should be publicly accessible to allow seniors to select providers based on best out comes. Of course doctors and hospitals will scream bloody murder they would actually have to care for their patients to get paid and would loose patients when their best out come rating was low. Doctors will buy all the Republicans and few Democrats as well to insure that this type of system never see's the light of day.
Workers have paid into payroll taxes from every paycheck to pay for both Medicare and Social Security.
We should have savings in Medicare, but the more we put in the more medical costs have went up.
So Cicero what is your retirement plan?
Did you know the workers pay for all retirements, but those who won't draw it don't pay for Social Security?
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wZUllrdp5_4J:www.ssa.gov/glossary.htm+what+is+social+security%3F+entitlement&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com
We need to cut over-treatÂment, inappropriÂate treatment, waste, fraud and abuse in care and billing; without nickel and diming patients or healthcare providers.
Biggest cost item is the third of healthcare budget spent in last months of life because there is no family to care-for the end-of-life patients (forcing 80% to die in the hospital or nursing homes). I suggest we can end this by billing first degree relatives for all non-medical care. Let family courts decides who should pay; including taxpayers in part or in full.
Seniors can improve the healthcare system by them, their first-degrÂee relatives and friends taking care (non-medicÂal) of themselvesÂ.
Healthcare workers are highly-traÂined, highly-paiÂd professionÂals working in a costly environmenÂt. These workers are the patients' Care-GiverÂs and friends. They are not the patients' baby-sitteÂrs. And hospitals are not places to baby-sit patients.
One doesn't need to tax or subsidize (aka make it a political football) to eliminate waste.
One needs a remedy specifically targeted at those who could do better; but don't because we are Americans can have earned the right to complain about everybody and everything except ourselves.
I believe that most would rather stay at home no matter how sick but there are a lot of people that don't want anyone to die in their home. Many panic and rush them to the hospital. Maybe that attitude could be changed.
When my sister in law died at home her sister and some of us sister in laws would sing her favorite songs, if she woke before medicine time. She didn't have a pain machine but we didn't let her suffer. We felt she was blessed to die because she had to be kept unconscious in order to stand the pain.
People usually died at home until the last 60 years or so.
My husband's mother died at home. She was eating grapes and stood up and said there is a pain in my head and died right then.
If the families had more of the equipment they could rent, like pain machines and the medicines they need, more would probably stay in their home.
There are people who could stay and be day sitters with them, but if the R government gets involved it would probably get expensive fast.
Maybe we need an insurance for our last needs and care.
If everyone in the USA turns it down-people will come here illegal and have children-so who should sacrifice for this?
We, as a nation, need to admit that SS, medicare and medicad are, for the most part, failures. These programs are immoral and unsustainable. I say immoral because people are forced to particate in these programs. Some of us think this is fundamentally wrong. And unsustainable, the mathematics are plain and simple. If you cannot understand the math, please do not vote.
Social Security was created based on need, but perhaps those who believe the titans on Wall St are entitled to their bailouts on our dime, awarding themselves fat bonuses after they crashed the economy- would prefer the old to be tossed aside like yesterday's trash.
We need Social Security precisely to protect the old and the vulnerable against the greed and cruelty of those who think only of themselves.
Before 1935, many poor disabled and elderly people would end up in poor houses and social service agencies operated by religious institutions. Since many of today's politicians seem to rally their troops based on their religious beliefs, they might try pausing to remember that their morality is based on a prophetic leader who called for taking care of widows, orphans, poor, and oppressed.
My intention in the blog is for people to pause and get perspective, not pander to catch phrases of politicians. If people don't think the government should play a role in taking care of the most vulnerable, so be it, but these people better step up to the plate with alternatives that are consistent with their moral framework.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/debt-deal-may-be-unfair-to-women/2011/07/13/gIQAY3mDDI_story.html
What I fear is any notion of the public welfare and the common good--and I think that sentiment was expressed in the Constitution, is being replaced with an entitled class that picks over the bones of the population ripe for looting. What would be so terrible about a society whose priorities were investment in the betterment of humanity rather than profiteering in war and destruction?