The USA currently spends 16-17% of GDP on healthcare.
Germany 10.7%
Excluding the UK, the rest of the EU spent 9.1% of its GDP on health in 1997
The UK has historically spent less (under 8%) but in the past decade that has increased to the EU average.
Obviously all the European systems cover the entire populaton.
You can get out of future FICA taxes by becoming Amish.
Try out how you look in a beard or snood first. You don’t wanna go making any permanent changes and end up looking like a dork.
I am a fiscal conservative, and I am very wary of the health care reform. The one issue I do recognize as unsolved by a market system is what we do with the voluntarily uninsured who do get sick or injured. I am a cold hearted bastard so I don’t have a problem with providing a very basic and cost controlled level of care to those people, but I am not sure we have the national stomach for that.
All those young healthy people do have a rational reason to not buy insurance. They know that they probably won’t get sick. If they do have a catasrophic illness the government or the hospital systems will pay for it and they will plead poverty. That isn’t exactly an efficient answer.
I already look like a dork.
But I didn’t know that about the Amish. That’s interesting.
My understanding from various conversations–some with Amish, some with Mennonites, some with English–is that you might have to forswear all forms of insurance if you become Amish.
I have no idea why you believe SS is limited to retirement only, from the Social Securities own website:
Please educate me.
Conservatives oft used epithet for any group for which they disagree. For the love of god, if you call to have a pot hole fixed you’re a special-interest group.
Sure it is, write your congressman.
Perhaps because the national consciousness is more compassionate and reasonable.
P0. I said ‘vast majority’. Of course SS has been expanded to include welfare-like disability payments. Why? That’s not how it was sold to the public when it was started.
P1. I have paid in $100,000 to date.
I have no assets in my name that carry a value of $100,000 or more.
Neither does anybody else who has paid in money to date.
If everybody who paid in money to date stopped paying in money going forward, and even if they didn’t lay claim to any future payments, the system would collapse. Ergo, it’s a Ponzi scheme.
P2. Who said I was a conservative? Oh. You did, apparently. Liberals call someone ‘conservative’ for any argument for which they disagree. For the love of god, if you call to have a pot hole fixed you’re a conservative.
P3. How does my congressman (1 elected representative) have the power to give me my money back from SS?
That’s the problem here. Don’t you realize that? When it’s my money, and my decision, I can change my course of action whenever I want. Within the next hour, if I want to. When a federal program has been enacted, I have 1/535th of a voice through my representative to get it back.
State programs, and local programs, are on an increasing scale of accountability and ability-to-change.
Don’t you see the massive asymmetry of control and accountability there? Special interest A gets President Obama, and Congresspeople B-Z to vote them a subsidy. Oh…let’s take GM’s bailout as an example. But I don’t want to do that. In fact, I think it’s unconstitutional and illegal. But your answer is…write your Congressman?
P4. I’m not in favor of passing any laws that prevent you from being compassionate and reasonable.
Or, are you claiming the Moral High Ground here?
It gets awfully crowded up there, doesn’t it? With anti-abortionists, defense-of-marriage act loonies, and Sarah Palin. How do all of you find room up there on that pedestal to make yourselves comfortable, before you take the rest of our money to Go Do Good Things?
That’s not a “Ponzi scheme”. A Ponzi scheme offers quick and unrealistic returns on investment. In the original, Ponzi offered a return of 50% on investment with maturity 45 days from the date of purchase.
And he paid them. That’s a crucial point, the money was returned to the early investors, with interest due. That’s the tale, here’s the hook, the brilliant insight that made Ponzi who he was: the investors immediately and, (IIRC), without exception re-invested the money! He offered them their money, and, being sensible and rational people seeing a proven benefit, they reinvested the money! But, of course! Who wouldn’t?
He paid them, but, in a way, he didn’t. He gave it to them, they gave it back, and brought in their friends and family to share in the bonanza. Of course.
Anyway, the crucial factor is repayment within a very short time frame. Social Security doesn’t work like that, of course.
You’re welcome.
Once again it appears you are misinformed, this is the 1935 Social Security Act whose purpose was far more broad than you contend. I will not debate what you feel was told to the public at the time but it sure wasn’t ‘expanded’ unless you mean expanded 4 years later to the family members of those who’ve paid into it.
You might be able to reach for a point if no one was collecting Social Security. I can’t wait for the cite.
You started with a tu quoque retort then ended with nonsense…?
If you moved to a cabin in Montana you wouldn’t have to answer to anybody. You could just cuddle your guns and wait for the evil FBI.
Again you wish for a society that wont hesitate to send you out on the ice flows. Please find one, it appears everyone involved will be better off.
Thank you.
We went through this little bit of semantics in another thread. A Ponzi scheme. A Pyramid scheme. A House of Cards. Whatever you want to call it.
An entity is taking my money, and promising some return in the future. But there are no assets in place, anywhere, that I can claim.
Nice.
I’ll repeat…I am in no way advocating any laws that prevent you from helping other people. In fact, given the loads of compassion you obviously have for others, you should start right now.
Switch off your computer, donate it to a local school, and get out there to help feed the poor. I won’t try and stop you.
See? Isn’t it great what you can accomplish in a free society?
The fact that someone is collecting Social Security proves it isn’t a Ponzi scheme? What? That’s the WHOLE POINT of a Ponzi scheme…to make payouts to someone, somewhere, with someone else’s money.
Of course there are people receiving payouts. That’s directly related to the cashflows of the program. The Balance Sheet of the program, on the other hand, has a liability side that continues to explode over time with the future obligations required to the people from whom you are taking money today.
But those people have no real assets that they can claim, because they don’t exist.
That’s a Ponzi scheme. Or a Pyramid Scheme. Or a House of Cards. Or whatever you want to call it.
Medicare is in the same boat.
IdahoMauleMan, I can’t help but notice you haven’t yet addressed the original intent of the Social Security Act. I would love a reply, if none is forthwith coming I’ll assume you’ve conceded the point.
I don’t disagree with any of the basic facts in that report.
I do disagree with the conclusion and the opinion of the author. I can’t tell what position he/she is taking, if any.
A generational transfer-of-payments mechanism is a Ponzi scheme. Arguing otherwise, because there is some self-circular reference to what somebody else defines a Ponzi scheme, is meaningless. It not only misses the forest for the trees, it misses the whole frickin planet for the trees.
A generational transfer-of-payments mechanism is BAD. It’s not some bland financial term, that can be used to hand-wave an argument about what is or is not a Ponzi scheme.
You have confiscated wealth from someone, transferred it to someone else, and given them a promise to pay it back at some point in the future. But you have created no earning assets from which to pay back that promise, and you haven’t even stored the wealth in any hard form, such as in a commodity. The people from whom you have confiscated wealth have no claim on any assets.
That is BAD.
We’re arguing over trivialities here, like who defines what as a Ponzi scheme, according to which academic reference, and completely missing the big picture. Which doesn’t surprise me, unfortunately.
I haven’t conceded anything. I’m deciding whether to give up debating people who prefer to spend their time arguing over trivial definitional terms rather than focus on the real issue in front of them. And who apparently don’t understand the flow-stock concept of cash-assets, as well.
You said Social Security was originally intended for ONLY retired people, despite evidence to the contrary, you still maintain that is so.
Either you cite a source supporting you position or you shut your mouth.
Well, you are entitled to your opinions, but not the facts.
Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme.
(From the end of the article quoted before)
Very Nice. Again.
What was that I said about debating trivialities?
Here’s what I said:
** The vast, vast vast majority of Social Security isn’t even means-tested. So it has nothing to do with avoiding death and starvation. It isn’t a welfare program, remember? FDR was very explicit in his desire to position it as a ‘retirement’ scheme. **
Then I went on to say that I was happy to support basic welfare as a safety net, for which I already pay taxes. Because you had opened up the argument by somehow implying that if I didn’t support SS, I somehow wasn’t helping out on the death and starvation front for my fellow citizens.
Is the ‘…It isn’t a welfare program…’ language in my quote above what you’re arguing about now? Good grief. Forest. Trees. Again.
You guys are awesome debaters. Not quite as good as ** Der Trihs ** mind you, but pretty good nonetheless.
And you’re right. It is time to shut my mouth.
This organization indicates that if we do nothing, health care premiums will double by 2020. Does that make anyone think nothing should be done? How many companies would cut coverage by then? How many that pay for their own would wind up uncovered.? The republicans cited the same figures in 2000 and 2004 when they were running. Now they want to throw monkey wrenches into a plan we need and they know it.