Are You a Granny Basher?

[Eagle43]

Interesting article in USA TODAY about the cost of senior benefits.

USATODAY.com


Apparently it cost $27,289 per senior in 2007 for government benefits, such as medicare, medicaid, and social security, which is a 24% increase above the inflation rate since 2000.

quote: Findings include:
•Medicare experienced the most explosive growth from 2000 to 2007. The Medicare prescription-drug benefit, started in 2006, accounts for about one-fourth of the increase in Medicare, which provides health benefits for people 65 and older.
•Long-term care costs per senior have declined slightly in the past three years because of a move away from nursing homes to less expensive home care.


and...
Economist Dean Baker calls it "granny bashing" to focus on the cost of senior benefits. The elderly paid a designated tax for Social Security and Medicare taxes during their decades of working to support these programs when they retired, says Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic Policy and Research.•The cost of senior benefits is equal to $10,673 for every non-senior household.
•About 35% of the federal budget is spent on senior benefits, up from 32% in 2004.

[donheff]

It is granny bashing. We they get old they will need it too. When we get old our property taxes pay for the young folks schools. It all washes out in the end.

[ladelfina]

Not to mention that prescription drug benefit was designed to guarantee pharma profits more than it was to bail out grannies. If the Feds had kept the unfairly yet widely ridiculed "lockbox" concept instead of raiding it and co-mingling it in this disingenuous way.. we'd see that Medicare and SS should be paying 100% of their budgets for.. Medicare and SS, and the "Federal budget" not one dime. Problems and shortfalls need to be addressed within those systems, not by presenting a false choice.

In 2000 Bush and the Rs used the SS SURPLUS (yes, surplus.. remember surpluses??) to pay for spending at the same time they were cutting taxes on businesses and the wealthy.. claiming a "recessionary environment" and, in effect, an emergency.

It's the same "heads we win; tails you lose" tactic they always employ. Maybe if Rs could keep their hands off that money, there wouldn't BE a "social security crisis".. but of course that's exactly what they want to provoke.

[ziggy29]

There is some truth to it, but there's also some demagoguery involved in calling it "granny bashing." The mere fact that the senior entitlement systems are threatening to bankrupt us without reform doesn't mean I resent anyone who takes those benefits. Hell, I'd be taking them too if you offered them to me.

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by ladelfina

In 2000 Bush and the Rs used the SS SURPLUS (yes, surplus.. remember surpluses??) to pay for spending at the same time they were cutting taxes on businesses and the wealthy.. claiming a "recessionary environment" and, in effect, an emergency.

I respectfully submit that NEITHER Republicans nor Democrats have proved trustworthy in keeping budgets in line. Much of the so-called "surplus" in SS was "monopoly money" based on fantasy economic returns, heavily debated in 2000 between Gore and Bush.

SS is NOT the problem, the new Medicare prescription plan will bankrupt the system WAY before SS......................., and THAT was Bush's doing......

[ziggy29]

Originally Posted by FinanceDude

I respectfully submit that NEITHER Republicans nor Democrats have proved trustworthy in keeping budgets in line. Much of the so-called "surplus" in SS was "monopoly money" based on fantasy economic returns, heavily debated in 2000 between Gore and Bush.

SS is NOT the problem, the new Medicare prescription plan will bankrupt the system WAY before SS......................., and THAT was Bush's doing......

Yep. And all those Clinton-era "balanced budgets" were only "balanced" by offsetting the actual working deficit by the excess in SS receipts versus payouts.

Medicare is much closer to the brink than SS. Both need to be fixed with shared sacrifice -- no expectation that one generation has to take all the pain -- but Medicare's prognosis is more grim. Adding the prescription benefit to Medicare was like pouring gasoline on a fire. It's just going to accelerate the insolvency.

[FinanceDude]

Originally Posted by ziggy29

Yep. And all those Clinton-era "balanced budgets" were only "balanced" by offsetting the actual working deficit by the excess in SS receipts versus payouts.

Medicare is much closer to the brink than SS. Both need to be fixed with shared sacrifice -- no expectation that one generation has to take all the pain -- but Medicare's prognosis is more grim. Adding the prescription benefit to Medicare was like pouring gasoline on a fire. It's just going to accelerate the insolvency.

Some days I wish I was 50 or older, I believe that in ALL apocalyptic scenarios, those over 50 would see NO reduction in benefits...........