Yeah... I guess all those late-night lawyer commercials saying how even you can easily get Disability have nothing to do with the greatly increased disability spending.
Pie, good points. SS is not in any real danger, although the disability scandal is an outrage, almost on a par with the VA scandal. Typically, Obama has failed to address either meaningfully. Medicare is the problem. There is a myth that medicare is not means tested. Totally untrue. Medicare premiums approach private insurance premiums for "high " earners, ie above $275k or so. Once you add in Part D, which also bumps up your monthly medicare premium if you subscribe to it, even though you're already paying a private insurer for it, and add in supplemental medicare, you are talking a significant chunk of money. I know providers have ways of gaming the medicare system, but I don't think high fees are the problem. Most physicians actually hate to even take medicare patients because the allowable reimbursements are absurdly low for most routine services. One big issue is that a very high percentage of payments are incurred during end of life illnesses. Hillary and Obama will be happy to cut those off for you and your family, but I suspect they will retain them for themselves. That is the way most socialist systems work, one rule for the people,another for the elites. Our system may not be "fair", but at least we're upfront about it.
When social security was set up, they made a promise that 3% was the most you would ever pay. They also said that the money was yours, as a right. https://news.google.com/newspapers?...AIBAJ&sjid=xYAMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2446,5676050&hl=en Of course those were lies, and we keep hearing more and more lies from the big gov't proponents. Their promises aren't worth dick.
Thank you so much. I am learning a lot from you guys. One of the several things that never crossed my mind, but should have, was the possible effect of increased longevity and increased retirement age.
Everything you say here is undeniably true! (I'm not joking.) We are paying a huge amount for medicare! And we pay it all our working lives on top of what we or our companies pay for medical insurance. When we take into actuarial account the incidence of medical intervention before and after age 65, suddenly it dawns us: "Oh my God!, The (non-profit!) Blues have insured us at huge cost during our healthy years, then dumped us onto medicare when we are old and acquire all manner of chronic health ailments and end-of-life costs.. It's no wonder medicare is so expensive, but what's obscene is how much, in addition to medicare premiums, we had to pay when we were healthy. Now we understand why there is plenty of money to send every Blue board member home after the Winter Quarter meeting with a new set of Lacoste Alligator luggage -- just a small token of our heartfelt appreciation.. It is true that physicians gripe about the "absurdly low" medicare reimbursement for routine services. But of course they are only absurdly low in the Blue Cross- Blue Shield world that Physicians in the U.S. live in. Any place else on our planet they are absurdly high!!!