I think there’s a lot of merit to having private accounts in Social Security. That being said, you don’t screw with such programs without public support. Republicans are free to float the idea like they did 11 years ago, but shouldn’t act unless they actually succeed in persuading the public this time.
But it was ALWAYS Bubba and Mary Lou who supported Grandma and Grandpa. They just did it through deductions to SS and Medicare in their paychecks, rather than directly.
I almost wish Bush would have succeeded in getting grampa’s retirement transferred to the stock market, just so I could have watched Bush, Cheney, Condi, and Rummy get lynched when the DJIA fell from 14000 to 6600 in about 18 months, starting in October 2007. A little too early to blame on Obama, and a little too late to blame on Clinton. I know Rummy and Condi probably had nothing to do with SS, but they should have been lynched for Iraq already.
Yes, the market goes up in the long run (at least, it has), but old people may not have a long run. My mom won’t even buy green bananas.
Besides, Social Security is a safety net, not an investment opportunity. If people want to get rich in the market, nobody’s stopping them. But a safety net should not be put in the market, or lottery tickets, or the Kentucky Derby. It should be put in government bonds whose principal is guaranteed by the full faith and credit of the US, which used to mean something before the asshole Republicans started playing chicken with the country’s credit rating.
And if it even needs to be said, the Social Security “crisis” is a hoax. Not a global warming type of hoax, a real hoax. All they have to do is tax high salaries at the same rate as low wages, and SS would have plenty of money (currently, any earnings above ~120K aren’t taxed for SS). And this is so well known that anyone who’s read a single article from almost any source but Fox or Breitbart knows it. Every expert on TV saying that benefits have to be cut, or the system has to be privatized in order to save it, is a fucking liar who knows he’s lying.
Now, I’m amazed that nobody has said this, because this is also in almost any article from any reputable news source, but people already on Medicare or SS will not be forced to change. In fact, most proposals (including Ryan’s, unless he changed it recently) say people who are 55, i.e. ten years younger than when they can get Medicare, will not have to change.
But notice I said “will not have to change,” rather than “won’t be affected,” which is what some sloppily written articles say. If Ryan gets his Medicare “reform” through, and Trump repeals the ACA (both of which seem likely with all three branches of government firmly in Republican hands), then Medicare recipients will be screwed.
Why? Because repealing the ACA will mean that insurance companies can go back to picking whom they’ll insure. If you’re old and have a bad ticker, they won’t take you. If you’re young and healthy, they will. So although old people will theoretically have a choice whether they use Medicare or private insurance, the reality will be that all the old, sick people will be forced to use Medicare. Which means that Medicare will have to pay out way more than the insurance companies who take only young, healthy people. Which means that Medicare premiums will go up like a balloon.
Meanwhile, for young and healthy people, their premiums will go down. Not as much as they should, of course, since the insurance execs like their yachts and planes, but enough for Fox News to have all kinds of headlines about how Obamacare was a ripoff, because the premiums were higher. Well, of course they were, since they couldn’t turn you down for pre-existing conditions, and they couldn’t limit the benefits you got.
Healthy people will benefit from that – they’ll pay less in premiums, and since they won’t need anything but routine and preventive services, they’ll be fine. But god help them if they get cancer, or have a heart attack, or some other catastrophic illness — then they’ll find out why their premiums are so low.
First, their insurance company will unleash their investigators to see if they can find any previous illness you didn’t disclose on your application. If they can, and if their fine print was competently written, they will cancel your coverage.
If they can’t do that, they’ll pay only up to the limit that was in another part of the fine print. Maybe $100K, maybe $200K. Sound like a lot? That’s not even a month in many hospitals.
And the more they pay, the less chance they’ll renew the policy, so you have at most a year of coverage no matter what.
“Their small-town eyes will gape at you
In dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received.”
In other words, exactly like a savings account. What, you think that when you make a deposit at your bank, it all just goes into a vault somewhere? No, the bank spends your money as soon as it comes in, too.
Not anything like a savings account, since banks have to have reserves and the federal government does not. Unless you’re saying we can sell the national parks to fund SS if necessary.
That AARP that has got into bed with ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a now Koch Bros outfit out of Virginia, that ‘produced model bills on a broad range of issues, such as reducing regulation and individual and corporate taxation, combating illegal immigration, loosening environmental regulations, tightening voter identification rules, weakening labor unions and opposing gun control’ and supports various privatization nostrums for social security and opposes Canadian medicines for America ? That one ?
The poor old Kochs had another mouthpiece, also from Arlington, called 60+, but it went off-message.
The reaction will not come against specific proposals, only when the effects of those proposals, which won’t be proposals any more by then but you know what I mean, are felt. By which time, of course, it’s too late.
Under Bush’s plan, “grandma and grandpa” mostly wouldn’t have been eligible to do so, since it would only have been open to people under age 55. Also, it wouldn’t have phased in until 2009, which was the bottom of the market. People who opted in would have made a killing!!
It’s going to feel different when the $$ has to come directly out of the grocery/gasoline/cable/beer money every month.
I’m 54. 
Well, I don’t know about you. But that’s what my SS/Medicare deductions came out of. The fact I never saw that money in the first place didn’t mean I didn’t miss it.
Its the new 50.
This. Among other reasons is why I have ignored years and years of AARP pleas to join.
All Republicans need to do is find examples of Muslims receiving Social Security and they won’t be able to destroy SS fast enough to please their base. They’d rather set their dicks on fire than see “the other” get a penny of government benefits. They’ve been busy spreading lies about SS for about 80 years now, getting complete control of government for the first time since SS began is all the incentive they need to get out the flamethrowers and burn it to the ground.
So, rural white trash, when you lose your SS and your Medicaid and your food stamps, let me know how fucking concerned you are about Hillary’s emails.
There’s some truth to that. Europe’s diminishing support for a generous welfare state coincided with higher immigration rates from Africa and the Middle East.
Just means that if you’re a liberal, you gotta choose. There is a definite tradeoff between immigration and a generous welfare state. And not just social, economically it doesn’t work either, which probably contributes to the resentment.
Please avoid using racial slurs in this fashion. If you feel you must rant then the BBQ Pit is right around the corner.
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No, but the federal government owes the money to SS just as they owe their other debts. If that means having to raise other taxes to pay it, so be it. The money was borrowed, and has to be repaid.
Truth is, if the federal government had not borrowed the money they would have had to find another source to provide those funds. Now they need to find that source. They (and really by that I mean “we”) pushed a problem down the road to be resolved at a later date. That later date is now approaching.
I apologize, I was unaware that white trash was a slur- I use it to describe the Republican base demographic- uneduacated whites in low income jobs in rural communities. However, I shall not use this phrase out of the Pit in the future.
My sister-in-law’s mother spent about 2 weeks in the ICU before she died. The bill came to over $1 Million. She had Medicare and supplemental insurance, so the family wasn’t out very much. And the negotiated amount the hospital received was well below $1 million – but I’m pretty sure it was well over $200k.
About three years ago I had some health issues that required surgery. When all was said and done, the total bills exceeded $50,000. Insurance covered most of it. That was the only year in which we had large medical expense.
I was 60 years old at the time. I’m sure that if the amount paid in insurance premiums over the previous 40 years had been invested, we could have easily paid for all our medical expense over the years, including whatever the negotiated rates for the surgeries turned out to be. Admittedly, that’s only because my major health issues happened when I was 60 and not when I was 25. But still, the insurance companies have done very well by me over the years.
Without seeing the math, it’s hard to judge the statement. But $50K is a pretty small tab for hospitalization. You can easily rack up bills approaching 7 figures and you can easily hit a 6 figure bill long before you reach 60. It’s fortunate that any issues you have cropped up fairly late in life, but there are quite a few who aren’t so fortunate.