Math is not your friend here. Medicare, which is underfunded, is paid for by a 2.9% payroll tax on every dollar that you earn and benefits are granted only upon reaching age 65. PPACA is "paid for" by as little as a 2% tax on AGI and benefits are available immediately.
I think you're mistaken on what I'm addressing. My conversation with conservative isn't about PPACA. I spoke of a 6% increase in taxes but removing insurance from employers, which would give a net gain for the worker. Laid that out earlier. He bounces back and forth between cost and quality never addressing the rebuttal.
Yes I do. Doesn't change what I said.
Seems to me that you claimed Medicare wasn't in bad shape at all. Again you are wrong. IOU's have to be funded
A 6% tax on every dollar of income (much less only a 6% increase in the current income tax) is not going to cover medical care expenses now at nearly 18% of GDP.
Per capita annual medical costs are now close to $7K, so even a 10% tax on income of $70K would be the "break even point" for UHC without a very serious reduction in medical care costs/quality.
Seems to me that you claimed Medicare wasn't in bad shape at all. Again you are wrong. IOU's have to be funded
It also reduces costs with a reduction in paper work. However:
. . . with average earnings of $79,000,000+. Clearly this pushes the average much higher and that is why you see the average household income at $69,821.
How much do Americans earn? What is the average US income and other income figures. Fiscal cliff talks only useful in context of incomes.
Employers would also save money. We'd be ahead even if we raised the %.
If the average is nearly $70K then why is the median ($51.4K) nearly 25% below that?
Surely you do not expect that ALL will be mandated to pay 10% of their income to fund UHC.
Chart: Median household incomes have collapsed since the recession
Our biggest threat is crumbling infrastructure and degradation of services like sewer, water and electric. If you want to know what that's like, visit India.
As far as being attacked by any credible outside source--not just terrorism from a paranoid Right Winger---I'd say chances of that happening in my lifetime is 0.
No. But with the lower of costs. Using cheaper personal where possible. Controlling the unnecessary. And as I said, it being two tiered. Yes, I believe we can do the job.
No, I said I gave you a link that it wasn't that bad.
Many are concerned over Medicare’s long-term affordability. If provisions of the Affordable Care Act are enforced, the added budget costs of Medicare over the next quarter century are modest and affordable.
The Current State of Medicare | Brookings Institution
Still waiting for an example of where the Federal Govt. has implemented any social program that cost what it was supposed to cost and didn't end up with higher debt and waste, fraud, and abuse?
There are zero examples of the Federal Govt. being effecient and controlling costs in any program they implement
I've given you many examples. SS and Medicare have both done more than asked, and have improved life emensely.
Still waiting for an example of where the Federal Govt. has implemented any social program that cost what it was supposed to cost and didn't end up with higher debt and waste, fraud, and abuse?
The Peace Corps, the most cost effective arm of the USG abroad.
Naw, didn't buy enough votes and wasn't in this country.
I've given you many examples. SS and Medicare have both done more than asked, and have improved life emensely.
The situation actually is worse than it appears, because the Social Security and Medicare trust funds — the cushions that are supposed to help pay future benefits — exist on paper only. For years, Congress has diverted to other programs the surplus payroll taxes paid to Social Security and Medicare. In return, Social Security and Medicare have been handed an ever-growing stack of IOUs in the form of government bonds.
What this means is that, when the day arrives that the trust funds must cash in their IOUs, the government will have to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars in the bond market and repay it, with interest, to private investors and larger entities such as China's central government.
The threat of insolvency for Social Security and Medicare is greatly compounded by demographics.
The huge baby boom generation is just now beginning to retire. Their sheer numbers will impose a substantial additional burden on the entitlement funds, even as the ratio of workers to retirees declines sharply.
A fiscal solution for both programs is not difficult to devise. What prevents this from happening, however, is intense political opposition to cutting benefits or raising taxes or some combination of both.
For Social Security, the best solution is to trim benefits to bring them in line with payroll tax revenues. Today, the typical Social Security beneficiary receives more than his accumulated payroll levies justify. One reason for this is that Americans are living longer. So, extending the retirement age for today's younger workers from the current 67 to 70 is only sensible. In addition, even a slight downward adjustment in the annual cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients would go a long way toward staving off insolvency.
Medicare, too, must restrain its rapidly escalating costs, either by reducing benefit levels or overhauling the health care system for retirees. President Barack Obama promises to reduce costs with his sweeping plan for a broad federal intervention into the health care industry. Only problem is, a much more expansive government-run system for all Americans, not just the elderly, is almost certain to compound rather that alleviate Medicare's fiscal crunch.
Social Security, Medicare going broke fast by Newspaper Contributors on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent
And that people have come to count on them has created a culture of dependency for our seniors, not to mention that this is not a voluntary proposition....
Social Security, Medicare going broke fast by Newspaper Contributors on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent
Exhibit 1. Annual Increase in Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary and GDP Per Capita
Exhibit 2. Projected and Historical Annual Growth Rates of Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary In Excess of GDP
The slow growth in spending per beneficiary from 2010 to 2012 combined with the projections of spending growth at GDP+0 for 2012-2022 is unprecedented in the history of the Medicare program. If sustained, the slower growth would improve Medicare’s ability to meet its commitments to seniors and persons with disabilities in future generations.
I don't immediately see a date on the editorial but from the context it sounds like it was written in 2009. Meaning it's missing out on some of what's been happening to Medicare spending over the past few years. Like:
Growth In Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary Continues To Hit Historic Lows
Or look at Medicare in S&P's health care indices:
My eyes are glazing over, but can you put this into layman's terms?
Medicare spending growth per beneficiary has slowed down, a lot. Basically to a halt last year. And the outlook for the next decade is now that it's going to continue experiencing a period of slow growth unprecedented in the entire history of the program.
In fact, at the beginning of every year the CBO puts out a big budget outlook document (with an update sometime in the summer), and each update for the past several years has seen them have to revise downward their projections of Medicare spending because the slowdown in its growth continues to surprise them.
Thanks for explaining that...Can you tell me what is causing this slowdown?
That remains something of a mystery. The slowdown isn't limited to Medicare, though it's most pronounced there--health care spending growth across the entire economy is experiencing an unprecedented slowdown.
That said, the fact that it's been so sustained is leading to growing support for the view that at least a significant component of it is due to structural changes in the health care system that will have a lasting effect. There are lots of reforms to the way care is delivered going on now, many supported or seeded by the health reform law, so this may be the very early stages of something significant. That remains to be seen. The importance thing now is to try to build on and sustain the slowdown.
We have both had our say. You get the last word.There's no loss of liberty. You can have sound environmenal laws and not lose liberty. Remember, your rights stop at my nose. And when you poison my water, for example, you've hit my nose.
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