Proposed Medicaid Cuts Could Be Devastating to Utah

By PATTY HENETZ-The Salt Lake Tribune

Advocates for elders and low-income residents in Utah see Republican plans for cutting Medicare and Medicaid costs as an unfair approach that could mean the loss of billions of dollars to Utah.

The proposal released last week by House Budget Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., would repeal key provisions in the year-old Affordable Care Act, privatize Medicare and cut $1 trillion from Medicaid funding for states. The states would get set amounts, which would cap spending rather than adjusting it for changing needs and new enrollees. Congress is expected to vote on the proposal Friday.

The plan could translate to a $554 million cut in federal Medicaid supports to the Beehive State, say officials with the Utah Health Policy Project, who used reports by the Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities for their own state-level study.

UHPP says losses over a 10-year period could include:

• $3.2 billion in business activity, as seniors and others spend more on care and less on other goods and services produced in the state;

• 30,369 in related jobs;

• $1.1 billion in worker earnings associated with those job losses.

The cuts could also mean nearly 76,000 more people will be uninsured in Utah, mostly low-income children, seniors and people with disabilities, who together make up 73 percent of the state’s Medicaid recipients.

Story Continues

Elders and Obama's Speech

by Ronni Bennett

Did you watch President Obama's speech yesterday afternoon? Whew! It was better than I feared it would be. Kinda busy today (Wednesday) so mostly I'll stick to the major points affecting elders.

If you will recall, Paul Ryan's deficit reduction plan, widely praised by Republicans, would turn Medicare into a voucher program which, as the president said, “would end Medicare as we know it.”

“It says that ten years from now, if you’re a 65 year old who’s eligible for Medicare, you should have to pay nearly $6,400 more than you would today,” said Obama. “It says instead of guaranteed health care, you will get a voucher. And if that voucher isn’t worth enough to buy insurance, tough luck – you’re on your own...”

“They want to give people like me a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that’s paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs? That’s not right, and it’s not going to happen as long as I’m President.” [emphasis is mine]

Write that down, everyone. Paste it on your desk and as the debate on the budget continues in Washington, let's not let him back down.

One of the biggest budget busters in Medicare is the prescription drug plan. Rammed through Congress during the Bush II administration by a Louisiana legislator, Billy Tauzin, who almost immediately left Congress for a $2 million per year job as head of the pharmaceutical industry lobby, the bill specifically denies Medicare the right to negotiate drug prices as the Veterans Administration does.

Yesterday, Obama sounded like he wants to rescind this horrendously expensive giveaway to big pharma:

“We will cut spending on prescription drugs by using Medicare’s purchasing power to drive greater efficiency and speed generic brands of medicine onto the market.”

Medicare is the largest purchaser of prescription drugs in the country and allowing negotiation would go a long way toward reducing Medicare costs. I'm pretty sure the board rooms of drug companies are going ballistic this morning while planning their assault on Congress members to reject this idea.

Referring to Medicare and Medicaid, Obama said he would reform these programs, “but we will not abandon the fundamental commitment this country has kept for generations.”

”That includes, by the way, our commitment to Social Security,” he continued. “While Social Security is not the cause of our deficit, it faces real long-term challenges in a country that is growing older...

“[B]oth parties should work together now to strengthen Social Security for future generations. But we must do it without putting at risk current retirees, the most vulnerable, or people with disabilities; without slashing benefits for future generations; and without subjecting Americans’ guaranteed retirement income to the whims of the stock market.”

Okay, he rejected privatization of Social Security. That's good. He wants to protect current beneficiaries and not “slash” benefits for younger people. That's sort of good. Unfortunately, he left the door wide open for some kind of cuts for people younger than 55, for smaller cost-of-living adjustments and made no reference to maintaining the current retirement age.

And there was no mention, either, of raising the salary cap which, if it were to be eliminated, would fix almost all the Social Security shortfall for the next 75 years. So, there are still some red flags to Obama's commitment that we need to keep our eyes on.

Those are the big points relating to elders. I like it when Obama gets all warm and gooey about what America is (or should be), as in this passage of his speech:

”The America I know is generous and compassionate; a land of opportunity and optimism. We take responsibility for ourselves and each other; for the country we want and the future we share.

“We are the nation that built a railroad across a continent and brought light to communities shrouded in darkness. We sent a generation to college on the GI bill and saved millions of seniors from poverty with Social Security and Medicare.

“We have led the world in scientific research and technological breakthroughs that have transformed millions of lives.

“This is who we are. This is the America I know. We don’t have to choose between a future of spiraling debt and one where we forfeit investments in our people and our country. To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms.

“We will all need to make sacrifices. But we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in. And as long as I’m President, we won’t.”

Nevertheless, I was struck by the president's offhand acknowledgment of a sad truth about you and me and everyone who is not rich. While enumerating the many things wrong with the Ryan budget proposal, Obama said,

“There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill. [emphasis is mine]

That's the president saying out loud that if you're not rich, you don't have a say in government which implies that any benefits for the middle class and poor are left to the largesse of the corporate controlled government. Oy vey. What an admission.

If you missed the speech, the full text is here.

NCPSSM: Analysis of the Fiscal Commission Proposal

On December 1, 2010, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform released a report containing a set of recommendations for addressing the nation’s fiscal crisis. Their proposed changes to Social Security are especially troublesome, as they represent a completely unbalanced approach to changing Social Security. An overwhelming majority of the adjustments to the program come in the form of benefit cuts which will hurt generations of Americans, something repeated polls have shown the American people do not support.

The link below provides an analyst of the changes and their impact on beneficiaries.

Full Analysis

Spring News from Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement

Articles:

The National Deficit and the Debt? Why is Social Security Part of the Debate?

Webinar: Taking the Mystery Out of Retirement Planning-April

Details at Spring News from Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement

TIME GOES BY | Note to Elder Republicans: Suckers!

by Ronni Bennett

In the 2010 midterm elections, elders voted Republican 58 to 39 percent. As Paul Krugman said on his blog Monday:

”Oh, and for all those older Americans who voted GOP last year because those nasty Democrats were going to cut Medicare, I have just one word: suckers!”

No kidding.

Yesterday, chairman of the House Budget Committee, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, presented his budget proposal for fiscal year 2012. It is, basically, a blueprint to destroy Medicare and Medicaid.

Oh, and there is this stunner: a cut in the top income tax rate for individuals and businesses from 35 percent to 25 percent.

But back to Medicaid and Medicare. Here is a short version of Ryan's plan as it affects these two programs:

Medicaid would be eliminated by changing it into a block grant program without federal guidelines that would allow states to spend the lump sum grants as they choose. Oh, yeah, that will work out well for poor people.

Medicare under this plan would be privatized. Beginning in 2021, the current program would be replaced with a federal voucher system under which elders would purchase health coverage on the open market.

Oh, sure - try to find an insurance company when you're old and sick. At 64 and healthy, I couldn't find coverage at any price so I lived on a wing and a prayer until I qualified for Medicare. Had I been hit by a truck or had a serious illness during that time, I now would be among the elder bankruptcy statistics.

And get this about the Ryan Medicare plan, the vouchers are designed NOT to keep up with expected increases in health care costs and, therefore, premiums would quickly grow far beyond the amount of the vouchers leaving elders under-insured or without coverage at all.

(If you want more details and commentary on these plans, just google “paul ryan budget proposal.” There are already a zillion stories.)

Keep in mind that these changes would affect only people 54 and younger. (For a frightening take on this generational divide-and-conquer gambit, check out Matt Yglesias.)

Paul Ryan's draconian proposal has almost no chance of getting anywhere in Congress. It is so extreme that it makes the Simpson/Bowles plan look almost progressive - and that is the real danger: Stating the unthinkable moves the starting point of the debate much further to the right.

If Medicaid and Medicare are substantially destroyed, it will be all those elder Republican voters who sentenced their own children and grandchildren to an old age of poverty, sickness and earlier death.

Krugman, I think, gets it wrong about “suckers.” It seems to me that for those 65 and older Republican voters, it was more a matter of, I've got mine and screw you, my child. Sometimes I'm ashamed to be an old person.

In Republicans' 2012 Budget Plan, Rep. Ryan Gives Social Security a Pass - TheHill.com

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By Erik Wasson

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will largely give Social Security a pass in his highly anticipated budget while proposing a significant overhaul of Medicare and Medicaid, according to sources briefed on the plan.

The 2012 budget resolution, which committee Republicans are still finalizing, is scheduled to be unveiled on Tuesday. It will not back specific benefit cuts to Social Security or suggest raising the retirement age, sources said.

Instead, it will lay out the problems with the program and suggest authorizing committees tackle the specifics. It also will propose “trigger” thresholds for Social Security that, once reached, would ask the president to propose a way to fix the program.

Ryan is also not planning to include a proposal that would allow recipients to invest their Social Security payroll taxes, something Democrats have attacked as a “privatization” of Social Security. Such attacks doomed a 2005 effort by then-President George W. Bush to reform the system.
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TIME GOES BY | 2012 Social Security Benefit

by Ronni Bennett

In the past few days, an AP story has been circulating among newspapers reporting that in 2012 there will be a small cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to Social Security benefits. But the kicker is that an increase in the Medicare Part B premium will probably be larger.

I doubt there is a TGB reader alive who does not know the COLA has not increased for the past two years. The reason given is that there was no inflation during 2009 and 2010. You and I know better, but that's how it goes.

Currently, the average Social Security benefit is $1,077. The Medicare Part B premium for about 75 percent of beneficiaries (people whose incomes are less than $85,000) $96.40, is deducted leaving an average payment of $980.60.

So far this year there has been a small uptick in inflation which, the Social Security trustees project, will result in a 1.2 percent COLA for 2012. Assuming inflation comes in at the trustees' guess, that average benefit would increase to $1090 ($13.00 per month or $156 for the year).

But wait. Don't start planning a European vacation with it yet.

The Medicare Part B premium for 2012 will be $113.80 – an increase of $17.40 per month, reducing the 2012 Social Security average benefit to $976.20. $4.40 less than the current average.

Fortunately, there is a “hold harmless” clause that prevents Medicare premium increases from reducing the Social Security benefit, so the 2012 average payment would remain at $980.60.

So much for a cost-of-living increase next year. That should please the Republicans who think elders are living too high on the hog sucking on what Alan Simpson calls the “government tit.”

In an attempt to forestall cuts to Social Security in Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), on 15 March, introduced S.582 – The Social Security Protection Act of 2011.

In brief, the bill (full text here) would make it out of order in both the Senate and House of Representatives to consider any legislation that

• increases the retirement age or the early retirement age for individuals receiving benefits under title II (Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) (OASDI) of the Social Security Act on or after the enactment of this Act;

• reduces cost-of-living increases for them;

• reduces benefit payment amounts for them; or

• creates private retirement accounts for any of the OSADI benefits they receive. Makes waiver or suspension of this Act out of order in the House or Senate.

According to opencongress.org, as of yesterday, there has been zero news coverage of this bill. There are nine co-sponsors, all Democrats, of course:

Senator Daniel Akaka [D, HI]
Senator. Mark Begich [D, AK]
Senator Richard Blumenthal [D, CT]
Senator Barbara Boxer [D, CA]
Senator Sherrod Brown [D, OH]
Senator Frank Lautenberg [D, NJ]
Senator Barbara Mikulski [D, MD]
Senator Debbie Ann Stabenow [D, MI]
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse [D, RI]

You need to call your senators today to tell them to vote for this bill. Dave Johnson, writing at Campaign For America's Future, gives simple instructions:

“Call your Senators RIGHT NOW at 1-866-251-4044. You’ll be given a choice of which of your state’s two senators to be connected with. Call BOTH if you have the time. It only takes a minute each. Tell the person who answers the phone:

• I am a voter/constituent living in [your state]. I am calling to tell the Senator:

• I oppose all cuts to Social Security and

• I urge them to vote yes on the The Social Security Protection Act of 2011. “Please take the time for this very important effort today. This is for all of us who depend on Social Security. Call today: 1-866-251-4044.”

On 16 March, Representative Anthony Wiener introduced the same bill in the House, H.R.1118. Co-sponsors are:

Rep. Ted Deutch [D, FL-19]
Rep. Bob Filner [D, CA-51]
Rep. Alcee Hastings [D, FL-23]
Rep. Jesse Jackson [D, IL-2]
Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee [D, TX-18]
Rep. Frederica Wilson [D, FL-17]

Undoubtedly you are getting tired of hearing about all this from me, but we must remain alert and do everything we can to preserve Social Security not just for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren and beyond.

It may not seem right that a cost-of-living adjustment disappears into Medicare and then some, but without Social Security, many elders would have no income and destroying the program is high on the Republican agenda. Please pick up that phone again.

TIME GOES BY | 2012 Social Security Benefit

GOP House Leader Wishes for an America without Social Security | Entitled to Know

by NCPSSM
Every once in awhile…and honestly, it doesn’t happen that often here in Washington…a politician says exactly what he thinks. He/she steps away from the party talking points and poll-tested language which purposefully confuses more than clarifies. We had one of those moments this week, when House Majority Leader Eric Cantor made it clear that the America he dreams of would abolish Social Security and Medicare. Here’s what he told the right wing Hoover Institution, as reported by NPR:

“So we’ve got to protect today’s seniors. But for the rest of us? For – you know, listen. We’re going to have to come to grips with the fact that these programs cannot exist if we want America to be what we want America to be.” Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

It’s not really news that GOP leaders are really less interested in “reforming” Social Security and Medicare than eliminating them; however, politically, it’s certainly unusual for it to be verbalized out loud. The preferred terms of art for those who share Majority Leader Cantor’s views are “reform”, “modernize” and “protect for future generations”. Their cynical political strategy created and articulated as far back as the last major Social Security reforms in the early 80’s, was to ensure current day beneficiaries that they would be protected (the theory being seniors only care about themselves) and deliver the death blows to these programs to future generations who won’t really know what they’re missing –until it’s too late.
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Social Security and Medicare: Deficit Myths Information Bulletin # 328 (3/2011)

by Steve Gold

Challenging Social Security and Medicare's fiscal soundness has been a regular activity of conservatives in this country since the 1950s. The current attack is a virtual replay of 1983, with a few new twists. Each time they attack, the unstated but likely intentional consequences are to instill fear in older and disabled Americans, and people who will be retiring in the future. Advocates for Older and Disabled Americans must take the offense and fight back.

One of the new twists is to repeat the mantra that Social Security and Medicare are "Entitlements." This short-hand label suggests the programs are simply government largesse, "welfare," and charity. In our current climate, such branding supports reducing or even eliminating these programs.

But neither Social Security retirement/disability nor Medicare is an "Entitlement." Both were enacted as insurance programs. Payments come out of our wages pursuant to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act's FICA, and are deposited in four separate trust funds: Old-Age and Survivors Insurance; Disability Insurance; Hospital Insurance (Part A of Medicare); and Supplementary Medical Insurance (Part B).

Throughout out working lives, we pay insurance payments or "premiums" (a percent of our earnings) into these government sponsored insurance trust funds so that when we no longer have earnings, due to retirement or disability, we will receive these insurance benefits - the same way any private insurance program is supposed to work.

Folks, let's wake up. It's our insurance benefits on the chopping block; it's our money. Don't buy into the politico-hysterical rhetoric.

A second twist alleges that these programs are in deep financial trouble and are the cause of our national deficits. One of the biggest difficulties we face is to know which "facts" are accurate and which are thrown out to frighten us.

The 2010 actuarial annual report of the Trustees' of Social Security and Medicare shows assets of $2,540.3 billion in Social Security and $380.8 billion in Medicare, Part A and B. The Trustees report that "the outlook for Medicare has improved substantially." Part A "is now expected to remain solvent until 2029, 12 years longer than was projected last year." Part B's program costs are "down 23 percent relative to costs projected" earlier.

Due to the current deep recession, the Trustees point out that short-term outlook for Social Security is not good. Social Security expenditures will exceed receipts this year for the first time since 1983. Even so, the Trustees expect the deficits to "shrink substantially for 2011 and to return to small surpluses for years 2012-2014 due to the improving economy."

What if the economy does not improve as much as the Trustees assume? Rather than unsupported fear mongering, advocates must initiate a public discussion regarding how we might address this problem.

Easy and relatively painless remedies exist to address future Social Security concerns. For example, presently we pay Medicare payroll taxes (1.4%) on our total earnings, but Social Security payroll taxes are do not apply to earnings above $108,800.

Why should earnings above $108,800 not be subject to Social Security payments? Why should people who earn less pay on their entire earnings but people who earn more do not? Raising the Social Security's taxable amount of earnings to include all of our earnings the same as Medicare does will have no impact on the rate withheld, presently 6.5%, but will ensure that we all pay our fair share.

A variant of this proposal came from The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in December 2010 which recommended we pay different Social Security payment rates on all of our income depending on the earnings. The Commission estimated their recommended changes would close nearly half of any shortfalls over the next 75 years.

An honest public discourse without rhetoric and myths might lead to proposals that really address how to continue and improve these programs. In 1983, President Reagan appointed Alan Greenspan to head a commission which proposed numerous changes that resulted in nearly 30 years of security. Hmmm. Reagan and Greenspan????

Steve Gold, The Disability Odyssey continues

Back issues of other Information Bulletins are available online at http://www.stevegoldada.com with a searchable Archive at this site divided into different subjects.

Information Bulletins are also be posted on my blog located at http://stevegoldada.blogspot.com/

To contact Steve Gold directly, write to stevegoldada@cs.com or call 215-627-7100.

Career Connection Series: Ready to Choose Work? You May Already Have a Ticket - Disability.gov

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By Dan O’Brien, Acting Associate Commissioner, Office of Employment Support Programs, Social Security Administration
 
What is Ticket to Work?

Social Security’s Ticket to Work is a voluntary program that helps people with disabilities who want to work by providing them with free support services. If you are between the ages of 18 and 64 and are receiving Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) or Supplemental Security Income (SSI), you already qualify.

While you explore your work options or go back to school, the Ticket Program and special rules, called Work Incentives, help you stay in control of your healthcare and cash benefits. For example, cash benefits don’t stop until you earn a certain amount of money (this is called Substantial Gainful Activity or SGA). The goal is that one day you can be financially independent.

Learn how the Ticket to Work Program and Work Incentives might be right for you:
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Social Security Splinters Democrats in Debate Over Reining in Budget Deficits - The Washington Post

By Lori Montgomery

With momentum building to rein in record budget deficits, Democrats are sharply divided over whether to tackle popular but increasingly expensive safety-net programs for the elderly, particularly Social Security.

A growing number of Democratic lawmakers say they are willing to consider controversial measures such as raising the retirement age and reducing benefits for wealthier seniors as part of a compromise with Republicans to cut spending on the programs and stabilize them for future generations.

But senior lawmakers such as Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) and Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) are lining up against them, arguing that tampering with Social Security would harm the elderly — as well as the political fortunes of Democrats hoping to maintain control of the White House and the Senate in 2012.

The dispute, long simmering behind the scenes, is poised to erupt into public view. Reid has scheduled a rally Monday on Capitol Hill to show “support for Social Security and opposition to cuts in benefits,” according to an e-mail sent to liberal activists. And House Democrats this week signaled their intention to use Social Security as a cudgel in next year’s elections by launching an ad campaign accusing 10 GOP lawmakers in swing districts of plotting to cut the program.

Meanwhile, Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank, plans to release a memo Friday arguing that the deficit has emerged as an uncommonly powerful political issue and that 2012 voters will reward the party that takes bold action to restrain government spending — including overhauling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
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Social Security’s Possible Fate: Done in By Its Friends - The Washington Post

By Charles Blahous

Young people often ask me whether Social Security will be there for them. My answer has traditionally been: Yes, it will be there. It will probably pay less than it is currently promising you. You should not expect a generous return on your contributions. You may have to pay more in payroll taxes. But the basic structure of the program is likely to remain intact.

Recent events require a reassessment of this answer. Chances are now markedly increasing that Social Security will eventually cease to operate as the self-financed, earned-benefit system that Americans have long known it to be.

Many recent statements by public officials express a mind-set in which fiscal repairs to Social Security might be deferred for years. Administration officials play down the urgency of action by pointing to still-growing balances in the program’s trust fund. A recent Senate bill would erect steep procedural barriers against many measures to improve system finances. Even the Senate majority leader recently asserted that Social Security could be safely left alone until “two decades from now.”

If these statements are indicative of near-term policies, Social Security is in very deep trouble.
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TIME GOES BY | The War on Elders (and Everybody Else) – Part 1 of ?

by Ronni Bennett

It's been an exhausting few weeks: the earthquake in Japan, a new U.S. military venture in Libya, the ongoing demonstrations and fighting in almost every middle eastern country, the ominous silence from Israel, the crucial protests in Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana and several other states and the stepped-up budget attacks from government and corporate elites on Social Security and Medicare. Have I left out anything big?

President Obama has decamped to Latin America and Congress is in recess so maybe they can't do too much damage for awhile. It's a good time to step back and survey the big picture.

Since its inception about eight years ago, this blog has been concerned with the lives of elder issues large and small. I try to have some fun with it while lobbying for better treatment of old people, passing on practical information, addressing the difficult issues of illness and mortality and above all, adhering to Time Goes By's bedrock principle: contrary to what western culture generally tells us, there is nothing wrong with being old.

When, in these pages, I have indulged my second passion – politics – I have sometimes felt guilty about straying from the blog's purpose. Now I have come to see that in our politics, everyone of every age is at risk.

We are not supposed to say so (“all men are created equal” and blah, blah, blah) but I am sure you have noticed that there is a class war going on in the United States. Actually, it is global.

Here, it started the moment the New Deal was in place. That era's oligarchy had lost their battle against President Roosevelt's progressive legislation, but by steady increments since then, they have just about won the war now.

Over the years, the elites have used many tactics and strategies to steal all the wealth of the nation. One is the classic, divide and conquer. Let's look at that as it is applied to a crucial elder issue: Social Security.

I noticed it for the umpteenth time yesterday in an Op-Ed in The New York Times by a 24-year-old complaining about the lack of jobs and opportunity for his age group of recent graduates [emphasis is mine]:

”I fear that the young will bear the brunt of the pain:” he wrote, “taxes on workers will be raised and spending on education will be cut while mortgage subsidies and entitlements for the elderly are untouchable.

You and I know, of course, that “untouchable” no longer holds, but so deeply held is this belief among the young (old people benefit to the detriment of youth) that in the context of the young man's entire essay, his elder smackdown hardly stands out.

Why do the young believe this? Because it has been an argument repeated by the right for several decades in their ongoing offensive against Social Security and Medicare – an unrelenting propaganda machine pounding out the notion of “greedy geezers.”

That doesn't absolve a 24-year-old from doing his homework to find out how Social Security actually works but in his defense, colleges have dumbed down their courses for the past two generations and grade inflation has been flagrant for as long. So we cannot expect much critical thinking from our expensively “educated” youth.

The result, however, is an army of young people out to cut grandma's and grandpa's “entitlements” at the behest of an obscenely wealthy elite that is no more interested in the well-being of the young than they are in the current crop of “greedy geezers.”

What the young Op-Ed writer and his cohorts do not realize is that in blaming elders (instead of the wealthy elite) for their economic predicament, they deeply endanger their own futures.

How can it be otherwise? Salaries have been stagnant for more than a decade and there is no reason to believe that will change. Private pensions have been disappearing for even longer.

Any 401(k)s and IRAs that have recovered their value from the 2008 crash will be decimated again in the next crashes – certain to happen once or twice or more again over the next 40 years until the time that young man is ready to retire.

And who is to say he can even contribute to those programs. With low, flat salaries, huge college loans to repay, children to educate at astronomical tuitions, food and energy prices that are sure to rise dramatically in coming years, not to mention the cost of health care that unless we enact Medicare for All (doubtful), will be – already is - beyond the financial reach of most people.

So cuts or elimination of our “entitlements,” which many young people are convinced are necessary, will – if successful - doom their generations to an even more impoverished old age than so many of our own live with now.

The war on elders is also a war on youth - on everybody. More about all this tomorrow.

How to cut the Social Security deficit - The Washington Post

By Robert Pozen

Liberals should not be fighting Social Security reform — they ought to be leading the charge for change, for a simple reason: The program is no longer progressive. Contrary to popular opinion, the structure of federal retirement programs today favors middle and high earners over less well-off retirees.

The notion of Social Security as progressive is based on the criterion of annual benefits received per dollar of contributions. By that measure, the program offers a more generous return to those who earn less and therefore contribute less.

But a more accurate measure of the program’s distributional impact is total lifetime benefits received by workers at different wage levels. By this standard, Social Security is not progressive because low-wage workers live on average a few years less than wealthier workers.
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It’s Still an Empty Lockbox - The Washington Post

By Charles Krauthammer

Last week, President Obama’s budget chief, Jack Lew, took to his White House blog to repeat his claim that the Social Security trust fund is solvent through 2037. And to chide me for suggesting otherwise. I had argued in my last column that the trust fund is empty, indeed fictional.

If Lew’s claim were just wrong, that would be one thing. But it provides the intellectual justification for precisely the kind of debt denial and entitlement complacency that his boss is now engaged in. Therefore, once more unto the breach.
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GOP Senators Threaten No Vote on Debt Ceiling - Shira Toeplitz - POLITICO.com

By SHIRA TOEPLITZ


Twenty-two Republicans senators are threatening to vote against raising the debt ceiling later this year unless the president concedes to cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the current budget negotiations.

“Strong leadership is needed now to advance possible solutions to ensure that our entitlement programs can serve both current and future generations. Without action to begin addressing the deficit, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for us to support a further increase in the debt ceiling,” wrote Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) in the letter, obtained by POLITICO.
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Aphonia and Receiving Social Security Disability Benefits | Disability Blog

Image via WikipediaThere are some voice difficulties that are marked by making vocal sounds different from what they should normally be or by having problems pronouncing words properly. An example of this is dysarthria. There are other voice problems that are characterized by an impairment in your ability to produce vocal sounds with your vocal organs. An example of this is dysphonia. Aphonia literally means “no voice”. Aphonia is a condition in which you lose the ability to speak. It may involve a complete or partial loss of your voice. You may not be able to speak at all, or you may only be able to whisper. There are two main categories of aphonia. They are organic and functional. Organic aphonia results from some kind of infection, injury or disease like laryngeal or thyroid cancer. Functional aphonia is aphonia where there is no discernable physical cause for the condition. An example of this is hysterical aphonia. As just mentioned, aphonia may be caused by physical conditions like inflammation, disease, or injury. This includes:
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TIME GOES BY | Social Security Part 2: The Trust Fund

by Ronni Bennett

With a few fine exceptions, you would not know from most of the news media – print, television and online – or from Republican politicians that Social Security does not contribute to the deficit and is generally in good shape. It is not, as they claim, “broke.”

With $2.6 trillion in Trust Fund assets that will guarantee payment of full benefits until 2037, their argument is hard to make, but they tortuously and unrelentingly bang away at it. So today, we are going to lay out the facts of the Trust Fund and how it works.

(Actually, there are two trust funds: the old-age and survivors insurance (OASI) trust fund and the disability insurance (DI) trust fund. Although legally distinct, we will not be in error, for our purposes today, to refer to them as the Trust Fund.)

I know this is kind of wonky, but the enemies of Social Security are determined and it's going to be a tough battle to preserve the program. Those of you who care and write about the program – and everyone else, too - need to have the facts so we know when they're blowing smoke our way.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent nearly an hour on the telephone with Webster Phillips, a senior legal representative and Social Security analyst for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM). Today's post is based on that conversation and various documents that Webster pointed me to. (Any errors are mine.)

Before drilling down into details, my overall question was: Why do Social Security opponents keep saying there is nothing in the Trust Fund except worthless IOUs? The simple answer is that they are wrong. Here's how the Trust Fund works:

• All Social Security revenue - which consists of payroll taxes (FICA), taxation of benefits and interest on Trust Fund holdings – is deposited in the Trust Fund.

• All Social Security benefits – old age, survivors insurance, disability - and administrative expenses are paid from the Trust Fund.

• When revenue exceeds payouts, the surplus is invested – by law – in interest-bearing U.S. Treasury securities. These can be redeemed when needed to pay benefits.

This is the point where anti-Social Security zealots argue that the system is broke. One argument is that the federal government has “raided” the Trust Fund - a “misuse” of funds, they say - and it is empty.

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) explains, using Trust Fund assets is not a “raid,” it is how government finances are managed – something Social Security detractors misunderstand – willfully or otherwise:

“...a Social Security cash surplus allows the government to borrow less from the public [i.e. U.S. individuals and institutions, the Federal Reserve, foreign investors] to finance the deficit...

“The Treasury always uses whatever cash is on hand – from Social Security contributions or other earmarked or non-earmarked sources to meet its current obligations before engaging in additional borrowing from the public.”

As the writer of the CBPP report goes on to note,

“There is no sensible alternative to this practice. After all, why should the Treasury borrow funds when it has cash in the till?”

The other main argument for Social Security being broke is that the Treasury securities in the Trust Fund are worthless. That is true only if you believe the Chinese, Japan, the U.K. and dozens of other countries are idiots to hold U.S. Treasury securities and are expecting to lose their money.

Here is part of what the Social Security Act says about the Trust Fund securities assets:

”...the obligation shall be incontestable in the hands of the Trust Fund to which it is issued, that the obligation is supported by the full faith and credit of the United States, and that the United States is pledged to the payment of the obligation with respect to both the principal and interest.”

When Social Security revenue falls below outlay, those Treasuries must be redeemed. The CBPP report again:

“When Social Security needs to start cashing in its holdings of Treasury securities to meet its benefit obligations, the federal government will have to increase its borrowing from the public, or raise taxes or spend less.

“That will be a concern for the Treasury – but not for Social Security, as long as the solvency of the federal government itself is not called into question. Social Security will be able to sell its bonds just as any private investor might do.”

So here is what I think about the people trying to weaken or kill Social Security: they want to continue to cut corporate and high-earning individuals' taxes, fire or cut salaries for public employees, fund various wars (I'm getting nervous about Libya) and bail out banks.

Now that the time has arrived to begin using the Social Security Trust Fund (i.e., redeem some of the securities using general funds), they must demonize recipients - elders and the disabled - as greedy geezers to cut benefits and hand the savings over to the already rich.

The ones who understand how Social Security and government funding operate know exactly what they are doing and are making that choice deliberately. Put crudely: money for wealthy, good; money for elders, bad.

Those in Congress who do not understand how it works (it would be an interesting exercise to require the 87 new tea party representatives to take a test on this stuff), go along with their ideological brethren because - well, you know, all government is bad.

FYI: one-half of U.S. retirees receive at least 90 percent of their income from Social Security. The average Social Security benefit is $14,000 per year.

Next – soon – we will discuss rational proposals to secure Social Security far into the future.

TIME GOES BY | Social Security Part 2: The Trust Fund

Social Security Part I: Stealth Cuts

by Ronni Bennett

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Republican House Speaker John Boehner had this to say about Social Security in an interview with that newspaper:

”[H]e's determined to offer a budget this spring that curbs Social Security and Medicare, despite the political risks, and that Republicans will try to persuade voters that sacrifices are needed.”

Curbs.

Sacrifices.

As though Republicans haven't forced those on us already – with the consent of President Obama.

The media does not report it this way and government spokespersons from the president on down won't say it, but Social Security has been cut twice in the past three months:

ONE: REVENUE

Social Security revenue was cut by 15 percent due to the two percent cut in the FICA payroll tax that Congress agreed to in December when they extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

The White House administration got away with passing off this drastic reduction in revenue by referring to it as a one-year, workers' tax holiday and the media, as ever, dutifully reported that white-washed definition without mentioning the consequences to Social Security.

They probably thought two percent doesn't sound like much, but it is one-third of the total employee contribution of 6.2 percent of wages up to $106,800. Employers pay another 6.2 percent which was not cut thus creating the 15 percent shortfall in revenue.

This is one of the reasons that the Congressional Budget Office announced that the Social Security Administration will need to dip into the trust fund this year to pay current benefits. The other reason, as with 2010, is that due to high unemployment, Social Security revenue is already down without the tax holiday
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TWO: ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS

An item in the stop-gap continuing resolution passed by Congress last week that averted a government shutdown for two weeks, continues the freeze on Social Security administrative costs at 2010 levels.

In addition to whatever those “curbs” and “sacrifices” are than Boehner is planning, the Republicans want to continue these cuts for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011 as Congress tries to come up with a final budget for the year before midnight 18 March when, if there is no new FY2011 budget, the government will shut down.

Noting that the Social Security Administration, due to the spending freeze, has officially warned its employees of coming furloughs, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) provided a sampling of what these administrative cuts are:

$981 million – Current budget shortfall in SSA (due to the freeze at 2010 funding)
$125 million – Additional reduction to budget
$500 million – Internet Technology reduction
$118 million – Computer Center reduction

That is a total of $1.724 billion in SSA operations and systems reductions. Here is what that means, according to the NCPSSM, for Social Security recipients for every week SSA employees are furloughed:

• 100,000 people, including new retirees, survivors and Medicare applicants to wait longer for their benefits
• 73,000 disability applicants will wait 30 days longer than the current wait period of almost four months
• 18,000 disability applicants making an appeal will wait until 2012 to present their appeals to a judge
• 115,000 new and 231,000 replacement Social Security numbers will not be issued, leaving workers without the documentation they need to start a new job or open a bank account

So the attack on Social Security is in full swing, these two stealth cuts have been made and Boehner along with tea party and other Republicans want more.

During the 2010 primary and election campaigns, Obama waffled around on Social Security. He rejected privatization, called for a small increase in the salary cap and never explicitly said he opposes cuts to the program.

Since then, he has signed two reduction bills – the tax holiday and the continuing resolution that freezes administrative costs. And none of the media reports this.

On Friday evening, the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, Austan Goolsbee, spoke with Larry O'Donnell, host of MSNBC's The Last Word. (O'Donnell's reference to reductions in increases refers to cost-of-living (COLA) adjustments.) Watch Goolsbee's waffle: (about 1:35)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There you have it – all sorts of wiggle room as the White House refuses to say it will oppose cuts to Social Security.

To make it worse, here is what else John Boehner said in his Wall Street Journal interview [emphasis is mine]:

”...Mr. Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he told President Barack Obama that he would take the political plunge alongside him if the president announced his own willingness to tackle changes to those programs.

"'I offered to the president we could lock arms and walk out and begin the conversation about the size of the problem,'" Mr. Boehner said, adding that Mr. Obama responded 'positively.'”

To reiterate what has been stated many times: Social Security does not contribute one penny to the deficit. It is self-funded by those FICA deductions from workers' paychecks.

And, even with reduced revenue from that tax holiday and higher unemployment, the Social Security trust fund, which will continue to grow until 2025, will have the resources to pay full benefits until 2037. Only minor tweaks are needed to secure Social Security far beyond that date.

The president and Mr. Goolsbee are not stupid men. So what don't they understand about how Social Security works and its fiscal condition? The only conclusion I can draw is that they, like Republicans, want to cut Social Security.

Petition - Defending Social Security: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Vermont)

Image by Getty Images via @daylife
By Senator Sanders

Social Security - the most successful government program in our nation's history - is at risk.

Before Social Security was established 75 years ago, more than half of our elderly population lived in poverty. Because of Social Security, the poverty figure for seniors today is less than 10 percent. Social Security also provides dignified support for millions of widows, widowers, orphans and people with disabilities.

Since it was established, Social Security has paid every nickel it owed to every eligible American, in good times and bad. As corporations over the last 30 years destroyed the retirement dreams of millions of older workers by eliminating defined-benefit pension plans, Social Security was there paying full benefits. When Wall Street greed and recklessness caused working people to lose billions in retirement savings, Social Security was there paying full benefits.

Despite its success, Social Security faces an unprecedented attack from Wall Street, the Republican Party and a few Democrats. If the American people are not prepared to fight back, the dismantling of Social Security could begin in the very near future.

Rep. Paul D. Ryan, the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, wants to partially privatize Social Security, lower its cost-of-living adjustments and drastically cut benefits. And there are threats on other fronts. A deficit-reduction commission established by President Obama called for increasing the retirement age to 69, reducing cost-of-living adjustments for today's retirees and deeply reducing benefits for future retirees who make as little as $42,000 a year.

We must do everything we can to defend Social Security and protect the needs of tens of millions of working families. With this in mind, Sen. Bernie Sanders formed the Defend Social Security Caucus.

Members of the new organization already include Sens. Akaka, Blumenthal, Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Cantwell, Harkin, Lautenberg, Menendez, Merkley, Mikulski, Reed, Sanders, Schumer, Stabenow, and Whitehouse.

Please sign up to become a citizen member to show your support for Social Security and to receive e-mail updates from Sen. Sanders.