The Public Policy
Medicare Reform: Who Decides?
Both parties know that Medicare is broke. So how are we going to fix it?
In an ordinary environment, it is nearly impossible for Americans to conduct a reasoned discussion about Medicare. And entitlement reform remains fraught with political peril, as the recent special election in New York has shown: Democrat Kathy Hochul defeated Republican favorite Jane Corwin, in a campaign dominated by Hochul’s attacks against Republican plans for Medicare. But it is no longer possible to avoid the truth. Medicare is bankrupt, and if we don’t make gradual but significant changes to it, the program will end America as we know it.
On a per-capita basis, Medicare spending is growing faster than the economy. On top of that, the Baby Boomers have started to retire: in 2031, when the last of the boomers reach age 65, there will be 77 million people on Medicare, compared to 47 million today. No tax increase would be large enough to keep up with the growth in Medicare spending, and so controlling spending is the only way out.
What gets lost in the debate about Medicare is that both Democrats and Republicans know that Medicare is broke, and responsible members of both parties have proposed plausible reforms of the program. Indeed, both Obamacare and the 2012 GOP budget authored by Paul Ryan would impose comparable reductions in the growth of Medicare spending. Where the president and Rep. Ryan differ is less in the “how much,” and more in the “how.” Put simply, the Obama approach puts government experts in charge of controlling costs, and the Ryan approach hands more control to individual seniors.
What does this mean in reality? How will these abstract-sounding concepts affect how doctors care for sick patients? Which one is more likely to work? It’s worth spending some time on these questions. We can start with the basics of how Medicare works today.
Health insurance is, in theory, fairly simple. Participants in an insurance plan pay monthly premiums. Those premiums, in total, should be enough to fund the actual health costs incurred by those in the plan who get sick, along with the administrative costs of running the plan. In order to ensure that premiums are as affordable as possible, insurers try to make sure that they pay for needed, but not unneeded, care. For example, a patient with a simple heartburn shouldn’t be managed as if he’d had a life-threatening heart attack, even though the two disorders often look and feel alike at first glance.
There are two tools Medicare could use to ensure that it pays for needed care and not unneeded care. The first is cost-sharing, and the second is rationing. As you will see, in our current system, Medicare does neither. Instead, it imposes price controls on physicians and hospitals, and those controls are increasingly driving doctors out of the Medicare system.
Cost-Sharing
COST-SHARING INVOLVES having the patient pay for a portion of the costs of his care. This way, if a doctor orders unnecessary tests or procedures, the patient has an incentive to say: do I really need this test, if it’s going to cost me an extra $1,000? Cost-sharing comes in three forms: deductibles (the insurance kicks in after the patient has paid some minimum amount, say $3,000), co-pays (the patient pays a fixed dollar amount, say $30, to pick up a bottle of pills that retail for $500), and co-insurance (the patient pays a fixed percentage, say 10 percent, of all extra costs above the deductible).
Medicare, in theory, uses all of these tools to contain costs. Most retirees pay $248 a month for hospitalization insurance through Medicare Part A, and $96 or $111 a month for physician services and outpatient hospital services through Medicare Part B. Retirees are supposed to pay $1,132 for hospital stays of one to 60 days, $283 a day for days 61 to 90, $566 a day for days 91 to 150, and all costs beyond day 150 of a hospital stay. Similarly, for Part B, retirees pay a deductible of $162 per year, and then a coinsurance fee of 20 percent of all physician or outpatient charges above $162.
Compared to the average private-sector family insurance plan, Medicare is a fantastic deal for the consumer: very low premiums, in exchange for very low exposure to health care expenses. But, as you can see, Medicare does try to use the tool of cost-sharing to discourage seniors from over-consuming health care services. Retirees, in theory, are increasingly financially responsible for longer hospital stays, and are expected to pay a percentage of most physician and outpatient expenses.
But the theory doesn’t play out in practice, because most retirees obtain supplemental insurance that helps to wipe out the cost-sharing provisions of traditional Medicare. Many of these retirees purchase privately administered supplemental plans, called “Medigap,” that pay for the deductibles, copays, and coinsurance fees that Medicare would otherwise charge. Because these charges are largely contained, it is very inexpensive—and highly profitable—for insurers to underwrite Medigap plans. In turn, seniors on Medigap have absolutely every incentive to overconsume health care services.
Rationing
THE OTHER WAY that Medicare could reduce wasteful health spending is through rationing. For example, let’s say a new treatment for malignant prostate cancer is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The new treatment has been shown in large clinical trials to extend life, on average, by two months. The company seeks to charge $200,000 for a course of therapy with their treatment. Medicare could, in theory, decide it’s not worth it to pay that much to extend someone’s life by two months. As a result, Medicare declines to pay for the treatment.
This is not how things work today. Today, if the FDA approves a treatment, Medicare is legally obligated to pay for it, no matter what the price. (Private insurers have much more leeway in this regard.) Certain drug manufacturers are increasingly taking advantage of this phenomenon to charge extremely high prices for their treatments, knowing that the government has no choice but to pay them.
As health expenditures increase, so too do calls from the left for the government to directly intervene in this process: to refuse to pay for treatments and procedures that the government decides are wasteful. For example, the government might decide that it’s not worth it to pay for a hip replacement for a 90-year-old woman, because that woman, on average, won’t live for much longer.
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POST American| 7.14.11 @ 7:31AM
Well, we might start 'fixing' the situation by
roundly writing off that 1.5 quadrillion is
FAKE derivatives debt, and the preposterous
TRILLIONS to the US taxpayer enabled, empowered and created
'RED China miracle' ---and then putting those responsible away for life.
Then we might move in concert with governments
worldwide to apprehend and also put away for life
the stealth enablers of the deadly GMO food op
(massive organ failure, generational and intergenerational sterility, cancers).
Canadian CON-job Harper should be at the top of that list.
Then we could finally admit, yes Cadmium,
Barium and Aluminum Oxide CHEM-trails
DO exist and are choking us ---esp. mixed in with
the massive, and unacknowledged radiation and
fallout from those suspiciously 'on cue'
nuclear disasters ---esp. in Fukishima.
(3/11 and 4/11 after all those dead blackbirds,
and all those dead sardines----------HAARP op? You decide)
Then we might have Congress issue a cast iron
mandate that all vice taxes, of which America
abounds, be earmarked solely for the most genuine and urgent healthcare programs.
THERE -----WE'RE halfway home!
Notary Sojac| 7.14.11 @ 9:52AM
How's the air up there??
Alan Brooks| 7.18.11 @ 11:45PM
( But thank GOD!...PostAmerican makes me feel like the poster boy for Mental Health month).
My prediction: you will have to take the wraps off biotech. It is risky, but so is indigent sick homeless people roaming the streets. BTW, "you don't want to be in the ghetto when the welfare checks start bouncing."
Melvin| 7.14.11 @ 8:09AM
I take immense satisfaction in taking medically care of myself. I am overweight, but I counter that by going to the swimming pool everyday and conducting a somewhat healthy lifestyle such as mowing my yard with a self-propelled walk-behind lawn mower.
My wife helps me with the tending of our yard that has benefits to her. Together we grow a garden in which she is more healthy than I am by eating the vegetables that we grow.
This has a added physiological benefit by her and I creating something together and in the cool evenings just sitting outside enjoying looking at the green.
My wife and I maybe don't go to the doctor as much as we should, but we do get checked for the major things that pertain to our age group, but other than that we don't consider ourselves professional patients.
Normal maladies such as the common cold, we tend ourselves, doesn't make much sense going to the doctor office sitting and waiting to receive the same medication that we can purchase at Wally World.
But there are times that some physical ailments that befall people in our age group is beyond our self-help mentality. We need to seek outside professional help, which usually falls under a nurse practitioner.
I find it very uncomfortable that a faceless bureaucrat somewhere has the power of God over me and my wife's health care. As human beings we are given classifications by the bureaucrats such as what former Sec. of Def. Mr. Gates gave retired veterans. The Dept of Def. now classifies us as, "Working Age Retirees." I wonder what Pentagon staffer thought that classification up.
I am starting to see generational demagoguery, that is being directed at Seniors, such as one local young person in Jacksonville NC calling Seniors, "Stupid," when it comes to the MediCare debate.
I suspect this demagoguery will pick up more steam as the debate rages on and it will get to the point with, "Why don't you old Bastards just die." Raising the age on Social Security and Medicare, rationing, increasing taxes under Harry Reid's, "Shared Sacrifice," maybe the only option that is left for the old Bastards is to die. At this point in the argument this plan seems to be the most fair that everyone except the Senior can agree on.
YeloStalyn| 7.14.11 @ 9:57AM
As one of the younger people who find myself increasingly angry with the elderly (which is someting five years ago I would have never imagined as I usually prefer the company of my elders to my peers... I worked as a janitor in a VA hospital and LOVED getting to spend time with the Greatest Generation and hear their stories) I can explain why you see the increase.
As the problem gets worse, the politicians cater to one group... the elderly. They promise not to take away your SS, Medicare/cade, etc. And as the youth grow up, land jobs, start to pay taxes and then start to pay attention to the things going on, they realize that the other side of the coin the politicians are offering is, "Sorry kiddo... you're gonna just have to get screwed tomorrow so I can get votes today." And instead of blaming the politician they blame the elderly who they see as the public force driving this decision (which they are). To curb this growing age divide, I would suggest that the elderly (or more accurately, those soon to become the elderly as even the youth, when provided an alternative, would prefer the elderly to not be left in the cold) begin to admit that they have been the public driving force behind this by their demands of "I want my entitlement!" Each time the debate comes up the elderly proclaim, "Don't touch MY Social Security/Medicare/cade!!" They never stop to think where that money is comming from. They ASSUME it's the money they put into the system. But because of the politicians and policies that you, the older among us, have supported over the years, you have signed away your government retirement investments. You let Congress raid SS and made it politically impossible for them to make Medicare more market driven because that would necissitate more sacrifice from the user. Instead, now, you draw a SS check that I am paying for but know I will never see. You are getting Medicare at a cost that, for you, is great but will end the program before I have a chance to see it. If those who came before me had simply realized that FDR was a Commie theif instead of their government Savior, a lot of this could have been avoided. But once you ate from the forbidden fruit of the Nanny State, all of your decendants immediately got put on the hook.
And here we are.
A wise and sensible thing to do would be for those with power (let's face it, the youth have no political power in this fight unless we're willing to do a tax revolt... and that's never going to happen especially for just one issue like entitlements) to suggest that THEY make a sacrifice to save the program. Because, let's face it, shared sacrifice means, and always will untl a miricle happens, "Those who benifit now, you don't have to give up anything! Those about to, you don't have to give up anything!" And the sin of omission? That the rest are getting screwed. Shared sacrifice should be, "We're sorry we hoisted this upon our children, and we will do what we can to take responsibility." And if you're willing to take the brunt of the hurt today, the youth will do what we can to help out too. And ideally, that means we're allowed to take care of ourselves instead of doing what you did and turn to the govenrment.
Granted... I don't have much faith in today's youth to understand the importance of playing their part in ending entitlements and then taking care of themselves. They'll follow the path they've been taught by example and this problem will start all over again. But, then again, you can't do the right thing until you know what it is in the first place, right?
Appleby| 7.14.11 @ 1:59PM
The entire world runs on the hypothesis that older people take care of totally dependent young people at the beginning of their lives, and those young people return the favour when they become adults and the older people become elderly.
Where this has fallen apart is that the "young people" are increasingly unwilling to step out of Mommy's Basement and give up their childhoods for adulthood -- and that too many of the "young people" are being allowed to get away with this. I am not that old (63) but everyone in my generation longed for that day when we had our high school diploma and could move out of our parents homes and be adults. Okay, so some of us weren't very good at it, but we picked ourselves up and figured it out. My generation were the first in their families, by and large, to ever attend university or college or even Junior College, if we got to go at all, and we were decanted into the Nixon Wage-Price Freeze Recession, 79 million strong...and we didn't crawl back into Mommy's Basement because that would be cowardly, and besides, Mommy wouldn't let us.
Now the "young people" want to freeload into their thirties, spending all the money they get on new Apps and Playstations and other toys and games -- and they firmly believe that This is their "Entitlement".
In my opinion, the Peter Pan Generation needs to be kicked out of the basement and into the working world and learn to be adults, because that is the compact parents and children made back when the world was created, and up until the 1980s or so, it worked just fine.
If children took care of their parents, and helped parents take care of themselves, there would be no need for any of these government programs. But too many of today's "children" don't even think they ought to be required to even take care of themselves.
P.S. If SSI and Medicare had kept pace with the steep rise in the lengthening of life, we wouldn't be entitled to collect until we were in our 80s -- or 10 years past the time when most of us would be dead. Oh, and nobody ought to be allowed to collect who didn't pay in. Including a lot of you children, divorced women, and disabled folks. The only other way anybody can pull goodies out of a sack into which they never put anything is via Santa Claus. Think about it.
YeloStalyn| 7.14.11 @ 3:18PM
What do you propose the youth do? Continue to pay into the SS/Medicare/cade system so you can retire in style knowing we will never get anything back in return? You paid in, sure... but you're also going to get something out. Statistically... more than you put in. How is that defensable?
It's not an issue of "taking care" of the elderly. It's an issue of who has the right to take from who. Besides... the elderly recieve more in government spending than anyone else AND, as a political class, are also control the most wealth. Just how much help do they need? Maybe they can take care of themselves and leave me the fruits of my labor so that I can hope to do the same thing when I get older and NOT burden those who come after me.
As for how the world works... your first paragraph... you're right. But the government MAKING people do that is immoral. And that's why it's wrong. Not because I despise helping people (which is certainly NOT the case).
Melvin| 7.14.11 @ 3:40PM
Then stop paying into FICA. It won't be long before you hear jackboots on your porch.
YeloStalyn| 7.14.11 @ 3:55PM
That's exactly my point. One group is using the force of government to take from me to give to them.
And I'm supposed to see that as my duty as a youth.
No wonder this nation got screwed up.
YeloStalyn| 7.14.11 @ 3:58PM
BTW... my defiance of FORCED support of another class is not indicitive of my PERSONAL CHOICE to help those in need... which I do.
It is important to realize that there is a difference between the two and that one is wrong while the other is exactly what we, as Christians, are called to do.
Sandra | 7.14.11 @ 4:09PM
How much are we, the elderly, supposed to give up, i.e., rent money; food; utilities; Part B insurance? Exactly what do you want us to give up? We paid into the system our entire working life with the promise of some benefits when we retired. If someone making $50,000 a year is having problems paying their bills, imagine living on less than $16,000 a year. Try to make a budget with so little. It is even hard sometimes to buy birthday cards for great-grandchildren. No money for ANY extras.
Obamacare is cutting $500 billion from Medicare, so how much more do you want us to lose? I could understand lowering SS payments to someone who has a monthly income over $3,000 from other sources, but the majority of recipients receive so little that they must decide whether to pay utilities or buy food or buy a new tire, because the old one is not fit to ride on. I have seen elderly persons buying cat food to eat (not an exaggeration because I asked her what kind of cat she had), and was told it was part of her diet. This is a disgrace, and you are complaining about our benefits.
The government started the majority of the programs decades ago, so please do not punish the elderly for the shortcomings of the government. If I had been given the choice, I would have put my money into savings instead of the SS and Medicare taxes being taken from my check each week. I had no choice, and most companies did not have a 401k program when I was working.
By the way, when will our government stop the fraud so prevalent in our entitlement programs? Fraud costs the American taxpayer hundreds of billions every year. Why not demand that the government investigate and prosecute these frauds? I am sure that the overburdened American taxpayers would be happy to help find these frauds and report them. Unless you are in our position in life, please do not judge what we need.
Where the money comes from should be the Social Security Trust Fund, but our government has borrowed all of the money that was there. It is now full of IOU's from the Federal government. The decision to spend the money set aside in the trust fund was not ours, but our representatives. Now you want us, the elderly, to pay for the misuse of funds by our government. If you want things to change, put your representatives' feet to the fire and demand the repayment of the funds "borrowed" by the government.
Notary Sojac| 7.14.11 @ 4:24PM
Sandra, the "repayment" of which you speak can only come from massive tax increases on your children and grandchildren. Are you willing to say, "Yes, that's what we should do in order that entitlements not be cut"?
YeloStalyn| 7.15.11 @ 10:00AM
What is your solution? Just continue to use the force of government to make other people pay for your retirement? HOW can you defend that? Simply saying, "I paid and was promised!" doesn't address the reality of what you are ACTUALLY proposing. The money isn't coming from thin air... it's comming from SOMEONE ELSE who will NEVER see a return on their money. It's just being taken and it will never be repaid. That's called theft, it's illegal, and it's immoral.
If you don't have enough money to get by on... ASK FOR HELP don't steal. There's a big difference between me giving my money to someone in need and being robbed by someone in need. It is the attitude of "IT'S MINE! I DEMAND IT!" that makes the elderly so reprehensible in this debate. Not the fact that they need the money. I'm more than happy to give my money to those in need. I'm not really thrilled about it being stolen from me by force of government. Put yourself in my shoes for a second and see how you feel.
Margie| 7.20.11 @ 7:39PM
I just started a post to these issues and somehow erased it and then decided to read some other comments before re-typing my thoughts.
Overall, I completely agree with what you have said and well said it is.
So all I need to say at this point is DITTO!!!!
I appreciate the time and thought that went into your posting.
Occam's Tool| 7.14.11 @ 7:40PM
You forgot to mention another eason that docs hate Medicare---because it assumes all MDs are crooks. Why work with an insurer who insults you, threatens you with jail, and pays less than any other except Medicaid?
Occam's Tool| 7.14.11 @ 7:45PM
Dang---"reason docs hate Medicare." By the way, include me in. Loathe it.
Marc| 7.14.11 @ 11:45PM
Of course seniors want their Social Security and Medicare benefits, they've been paying for them their whole lives and now they don't want to get screwed. I'm sure you'd feel the same way.
YeloStalyn| 7.15.11 @ 10:01AM
Why do you think I'm pissed now? I'm trying to NOT be in their situation. Your solution is what? "Wait till you get there... you'll steal from other people too,"? How does that make it ok?
Intelligent Design| 7.14.11 @ 8:29AM
Medicare could be fixed by denying coverage for pre-existing conditions when one reaches age 65. Most will consider this to be an off-the-wall idea, but it would certainly emphasize individual responsibility. Right now, more than half of all people receiving medical treatment are doing so because of self-inflicted problems, such as cigarette cancer, diabetes and heart problems from obesity, alcohol or other drug abuse. Let's just say "NO" to those who deliberately burden society with their medical bills.
Melvin| 7.14.11 @ 8:53AM
Why stop there? Americans with predisposition genetic profiles. Offspring from those who genetically pass on life threatening disease. Anorexia, which mostly affects women would be another cost saver, those who partake in extreme sports at the amateur level, such as skate boarding or snowboarding for example would put unnecessary burdens on the health care system with injuries that could be prevented.
Fetuses who carry their parents life threatening diseases, cancer, autism and many other diseases could b eliminated through genetic abortions because it would have been the parents responsibility not to have the child in knowing that they carried genetic markers of life threatening diseases that could cost the system thousands later on.
Your correct Intelligent Design the list of medical exemptions could be endless. Prostrate or breast cancer runs in the family, and ones parents knew about it, they should have taken the personal responsibility of not having children, and if they chose to anyway, then it becomes the kids problem of either being independently wealthy to take car of their own health care, or being denied health care by the IPAB panels because their parents didn't exercise personal responsibility.
Wayne | 7.14.11 @ 11:49AM
So you are proposing your own version of a death panel.
Melvin| 7.14.11 @ 3:38PM
Don't ask me ask the person of whom my post was directed at.
Wayne | 7.14.11 @ 11:29PM
I wasn't replying to you, just ID.
Occam's Tool| 7.14.11 @ 7:47PM
ID---what if they have paid for insurance privately all those years for pre-existing conditions? What if they get parotid tumors despite never smoking and drinking 3 glasses of wine yearly (my wife). Why should their insurance cut off at age 65 when they have not only been paying taxes for Medicare, but paying private insurance premiums all their lives.
POST American| 7.14.11 @ 8:42AM
----AND get the hands of
third generation EUGENISTS and their 'fave'
enablers, the actuarial psychpaths --OFFFFF
our health ---and OFFFFFFF our destinies
and posterity -----once and for all, FOREVER...
Notary Sojac| 7.14.11 @ 9:51AM
Arik, what we have to confront if endorsing the Ryan plan or anything similar is that the costs which are bankrupting Medicare - the last six months of life in which the patient shuttles back and forth between ICU's and nursing homes while heroic, cost no object procedures are performed repeatedly - will either continue to be paid at taxpayer expense or will be replaced by a pleasant hospice experience with no attempt to prolong life. NO insurance company will take on as a client a nonagerian with several degenerative diseases.
Wayne | 7.14.11 @ 11:46AM
That is the flaw in Ryan's plan. If insurance companies must take a "high risk" patient, they will raise the price to astronomical heights. It happens today in North Carolina with Blue Cross/Blue Shield. It is require to accept anyone who applies, but they set the rate. They said it would cost me $5000 per month (even though I hadn't even had $5000 in medical bills in the previous 10 years). If they had to take an 80 year old with cancer, they would charge about $500,000 per year. What we really need to major medical coverage. Let the person pay the first $3000 per year, thus getting away from unnecessary test and "search and destroy" medicine.
Wayne | 7.14.11 @ 11:40AM
I think the medical system itself has a fatal flaw. Rather than attack the most likely problem first, they go after the worst case scenario first.
For example I have to have my synthroid prescription renewed every year (thanks FDA). The doctor then insists on blood tests I don't need. He then sees "elevated liver enzymes" and wants an ultrasound and biopsy because their is a 1 percent chance I have cirrhosis (even though I don't drink), liver cancer (which would kill me in a year anyway) or hepatitis C, despite never having had a transfusion or used drugs and needles. What is far more likely is that their is an underlining infection.
So I saved my insurance company thousands of dollars in needless tests and paid to see a Naturopath instead who fixed the problem.
Occam's Tool| 7.14.11 @ 7:42PM
Actually, watne, it's a good idwa to monitor your thyroid every year on synthroid. Should you develop an arrythmia and then a stroke secondary to arrythmia, your lawyer would be happy to sue him for not monitoring you. Plus, it is also good clinical practice. I prescribe a lot of synthroid since thyroid disease is responsible for 13% of all treatment resistent depressions.
Occam's Tool| 7.14.11 @ 7:43PM
Sorry, Wayne...the word is "idea."
Wayne | 7.14.11 @ 11:40PM
No offense Occam, but I have been going through this since 1991 when I had my thyroid removed. The TSH chart was never constructed for people with no thyroid. I have reduced my thyroid literally to nothing, yet my TSH has suggested that I was hyperthyroid (making no sense whatsoever). I found one doctor I had didn't even know I didn't have a thyroid (despite having an obvious scar on my neck).
But I have found the Naturopath very refreshing, giving me a path that is much more inline with my preference, and one thing I love about a free society is having a choice.
But I understand what you are saying about the lawyer. My brother is a Neurosurgeon, so I get the damage they do by forcing defensive medicine.
Ike| 7.14.11 @ 3:14PM
Why is Medicare even on the cutting block at this point? There are literally thousands of programs that pay people to do self-destructive and dysfunctional things and those recepients never paid in a penny in taxes for those benefits. When Congress cuts out all the free-loaders and sets up the future Medicare and SS benefits to match the income of the program's tax income - and make that income actually go to the SS programs, not to general revenue - then let's talk about 'cutting Medicare benefits'.
YeloStalyn| 7.14.11 @ 3:23PM
You are right... this is a fight that we can avoid today especially because there are other more offensive money sinks in the government.
HOWEVER... it doesn't make SS "right." It's still a ponzi scheme, still unContitutional, and still immoral. At some point, we need to realize those truths and end the program for good.
Wayne | 7.14.11 @ 11:46PM
Yes, but we can say the same thing about public education.
YeloStalyn| 7.15.11 @ 10:04AM
And we should. How does that change anything?
Larry| 7.14.11 @ 6:07PM
Medicare (including Medicaid) is on the "cutting block" along with Social Security because those programs represent over 60% of all Federal spending. Include interest on the national debt, and that percentage goes up even more. If you want to take a shot at all these other programs, go ahead, but cutting those is just spitting in the ocean.
Wayne | 7.14.11 @ 11:45PM
True, but they were not created by Obama. Since we are focused on the problems caused by the rapid increase in spending by Obama, that is what we should be trying to cut. By dwelling on medicare and social security now, they are pushing senior citizen voters back to the Democrats.
Instead the GOP can dwell on the benefits that go to government workers far in excess of those that go to private sector workers. They should suggest moving all government pensions to social security and all over 65 government workers to medicare.
sell ffxi gil | 7.15.11 @ 4:16AM
bump
weddingdress | 7.15.11 @ 4:52AM
You are right... this is a fight that we can avoid today especially because there are other more offensive money sinks in the government.
HOWEVER... it doesn't make SS "right." It's still a ponzi scheme, still unContitutional, and still immoral. At some point, we need to realize those truths and end the program for good.
Maurice Vega| 7.16.11 @ 3:16AM
I certainly don't support privatization---putting old people's future health in the Wall St. Casino?
http://aquascoop.net
Gary| 7.17.11 @ 10:46AM
I am on socia lsecurity Disability, and I pay zero for medicare part A.