Seniors, Guns and Money

OP-ED by Paul Krugman in the New York Times
This has to be one of the funniest political stories of recent weeks: On Tuesday, 42 freshmen Republican members of Congress sent a letter urging President Obama to stop Democrats from engaging in “Mediscare” tactics — that is, to stop saying that the Republican budget plan released early last month, which would end Medicare as we know it, is a plan to end Medicare as we know it.

Now, you may recall that the people who signed that letter got their current jobs largely by engaging in “Mediscare” tactics of their own. And bear in mind that what Democrats are saying now is entirely true, while what Republicans were saying last year was completely false. Death panels!
Well, it’s time, said the signatories, to “wipe the slate clean.” How very convenient — and how very pathetic.

Anyway, the truth is that older Americans really should fear Republican budget ideas — and not just because of that plan to dismantle Medicare. Given the realities of the federal budget, a party insisting that tax increases of any kind are off the table — as John Boehner, the speaker of the House, says they are — is, necessarily, a party demanding savage cuts in programs that serve older Americans.

To explain why, let me answer a rhetorical question posed by Professor John Taylor of Stanford University in a recent op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal. He asked, “If government agencies and programs functioned with 19% to 20% of G.D.P. in 2007” — that is, just before the Great Recession — “why is it so hard for them to function with that percentage in 2021?”

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Governor Rips Nursing-home Lobby, Says Tax Cut Possible in '12

By Joe Vardon - THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

In a suburban Cincinnati facility where tooling for engines used by the military is made, Gov. John Kasich unleashed a volley of verbal missiles at Ohio's nursing-home lobby yesterday.

Kasich, whose speech was scheduled as an event to stump for his two-year, $55.6 billion budget proposal, also said that if the state holds the line on spending this year, "we will have a tax cut next year."

The governor declined to disclose the type or amount of tax cut after his speech. He has in the past floated the idea of eliminating Ohio's income tax.

But Kasich was largely focused on the nursing-home lobby, which got his attention with an ad paid for by the Ohio Health Care Association that began airing on Friday.
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GOP Unveils Medicaid Flexibility Bill

By Sam Baker


Congressional Republicans' bill to let states cut their Medicaid rolls would save the federal government nearly $3 billion over the next five years, according to a preliminary estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).


A group of House and Senate Republicans on Tuesday outlined their bill to repeal the Medicaid "maintenance of effort" provisions in the new healthcare law. The law expands Medicaid beginning in 2014, and the federal government will initially foot the bill for the new beneficiaries. In the meantime, states are prohibited from reducing their eligibility levels.
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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

Economists Oppose Plans to Convert Medicaid to Block Grant

Dear Speaker Boehner, Minority Leader Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, and Minority Leader McConnell,

We write this letter to oppose plans to convert Medicaid to a block grant and to cut Medicaid benefits.

These changes would do nothing to improve quality but would ration care to millions of America’s most vulnerable citizens.

Medicaid supports health care for nearly 60 million people, including 30 million children. Two-thirds of Medicaid expenditures support services for impoverished people who are elderly or who suffer from disabilities. By spreading the cost of care between federal and state budgets, Medicaid helps state governments maintain services during economic downturns.

Looming budget deficits have led some to propose capping federal spending by converting Medicaid into a blockgrant program. We recognize the challenges posed by budget deficits. Actions must be taken to close those deficits.

Yet block granting Medicaid is both unfair and unwise. During economic downturns it would expose states to the full costs of increasing enrollments just when their revenues are falling. The inevitable result would be curtailed services, reduced eligibility, and increased charges that many low-income patients would be unable to pay, forcing them to forego care or placing burdens for uncompensated care on hospitals and physicians.

Furthermore, a decision to tie the block grant to an economic index (the Consumer Price Index adjusted for population growth) that grows more slowly than medical care spending or actual Medicaid expenditures would cause steady erosion in all of these dimensions.

The only effective and equitable way to curb total health care spending, and the only way to address the fiscal burdens of that care, is to support systemic health reform. The best current hope for doing so is the Affordable Care Act, which should be implemented with vigor.

List of Economists Who Signed the Letter

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

Jeffrey Sachs: The People's Budget

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by Jeffrey Sachs

Just when it seemed that all of Washington had lost its values and its connection with the American people, a bolt of hope has arrived. It is the People's Budget put forward by the co-chairs of the 80-member Congressional Progressive Caucus. Their plan is humane, responsible, and most of all sensible, reflecting the true values of the American people and the real needs of the floundering economy. Unlike Paul Ryan's almost absurdly vicious attack on the poor and working class, the People's Budget would close the deficit by raising taxes on the rich, taming health care costs (including a public option), and ending the military spending on wars and wasteful weapons systems.

There are now four budget positions on the table.

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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.

Ryan Budget Pulls the Rug Out from Under Seniors, People with Disabilities, and Struggling Families

Community Catalyst Press Release
Contact: Kathy Melley  Office: 617/275-2861  Mobile: 617/791-0708  kmelley@communitycatalyst.org

Joint Statement of Robert Restuccia, Executive Director, Community Catalyst, and Rev. Heyward Wiggins, Co-Chair PICO National Network Steering Committee, on the House Republican budget plan


(BOSTON AND WASHINGTON, DC) - "The House Republican 2012 budget plan released today is a blueprint for disaster. Rather than prioritizing cuts, it seeks to balance the budget on the backs of those who can least afford it - seniors, people with disabilities and struggling families - while asking too little of those who can most afford to sacrifice. Today Medicare and Medicaid work in tandem to help people stay healthy as they age, become disabled, or face hard times. Block grants, privatization and vouchers would take away the health care security that all Americans have relied on since 1965.

"As consumer and faith-based organizations representing millions of American families, we find it abhorrent that people would be made to suffer needlessly or die prematurely because they could not afford to get the care they need. The House plan to gut Medicaid and Medicare will roll back sixty years of social progress in the United States and decimate programs that are a critical part of the safety-net and the backbone of our health care system.

"Block granting Medicaid shifts costs to already financially overburdened states during this recession leads to dramatic cuts in benefits and eligibility for seniors, people with disabilities, children, pregnant women, and working parents, just when people need them most. Families that rely on Medicaid to cover long-term or nursing home care could face enormous financial strain in trying to care for loved ones when their health care costs are no longer picked up by Medicaid.

"Privatizing Medicare is a hand-out to insurance companies, driving up deductibles and co-payments for seniors on Medicare today, and doing nothing to contain health care costs. By 2021, Medicare as we know it would be gone, replaced by a voucher program that would require seniors to buy private insurance. Vouchers lead to rationed health care. As health care costs rise, vouchers would be too small to buy adequate coverage. Many seniors would find they couldn't afford coverage at all and end up uninsured.

"Instead of taking an ax to programs that provide health and economic security to millions of people, federal policy makers should build on the cost containment framework that is already part of the Affordable Care Act and focus on reducing excessive insurance premiums, giving people the care they need to stay out of hospitals and nursing homes, and investing in public health measures to reduce heart disease, diabetes and other chronic illnesses that lead to higher health care costs.

"The savings produced by the House plan come at a great human cost and take our health care system in the wrong direction. We ask Members of Congress to reject this radical proposal to take Medicaid and Medicare away from those who need it most."
###

About Community Catalyst

Community Catalyst is a national non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to quality affordable health care for all. Since 1997, Community Catalyst has been working to build the consumer and community leadership required to transform the American health system. With the belief that this transformation will happen when consumers are fully engaged and have an organized voice, Community Catalyst works in partnership with national, state and local consumer organizations, policymakers, and foundations, providing leadership and support to change the health care system so it serves everyone - especially vulnerable members of society. For more information, visit www.communitycatalyst.org.

PICO National Network is a national network of faith-based community organizations working to expand health care coverage and improve communities in 17 states. www.piconetwork.org

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

In Campaign Against Health-care Law, Republicans Take on AARP - The Washington Post

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By Dan Eggen

House Republicans, who are continuing their efforts to chip away at President Obama’s health-care law, have now set their sights on a powerful group that strongly supported the legislation: the AARP seniors lobby.

Two GOP members of the House Ways and Means Committee released a report Wednesday alleging that the nation’s largest seniors group stands to gain financially from the Affordable Care Act, because the law could result in greater demand for supplemental Medicare policies that carry the AARP stamp of approval.

In addition, the Ways and Means health and oversight subcommittees have scheduled a joint hearing Friday to grill AARP officials about the organization’s financial ventures.
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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.

Does the GOP Have a Health Plan? | John Goodman's Health Policy Blog | NCPA.org

by John Goodman in his Health Policy blog

The Republicans have no plan to insure the uninsured. How do I know that? A New York Times editorial told me. So did Ezra Klein, writing in The Washington Post. Matt Miller, also writing in the Post, went further. “I’m willing to repeal ObamaCare,” he wrote, provided the Republicans can “cover the same number of uninsured” and “do it at a lower cost.”
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The McCain plan, for all those suffering from collective amnesia, proposed to replace all existing health care tax and spending subsidies with a universal health grant, structured like a refundable tax credit. The Patients’ Choice Act version of the idea is sponsored by Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Paul Ryan (R-WI). It promises $2,300 (individual) or $5,700 (family) to everyone who isn’t enrolled in a government health plan.
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Under the McCain/Coburn/Ryan approach, the first $5,700 a family spends on health insurance is courtesy of Uncle Sam. To have the kind of coverage a typical large corporation has, employees and employers would have to kick in about $6,300 more (with unsubsidized money). Not everyone may choose, or be able, to do that. Some might add $3,300 of their own money and buy a $9,000 plan. Some might settle for whatever catastrophic coverage $5,700 will buy. But everybody — and I mean everybody who doesn’t turn down a free lunch — would have protection against large medical bills.
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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.

The Conservative Case for the Affordable Care Act, Part III - Ezra Klein - The Washington Post

 

By Ezra Klein

Reihan Salam is tired of having to rebut the claim that the consistent thing for conservative supporters of subsidized-insurance exchanges for the over-65 set to do would be to support — or at least admit the potential viability of — subsidized exchanges for the under-65 set, which is a model better known as the Affordable Care Act.

But moving on from it is easier said than done. The policy Reihan is trying to defend — the Ryan-Rivlin bill (pdf) — appears to mimic the Affordable Care Act. One of its two namesakes, Alice Rivlin, believes that it mimics the Affordable Care Act and has said so on-the-record. Its other sponsor, Paul Ryan, says he disagrees, but he can’t explain why. When asked, he said, “how I would do exchanges are very different than how Alice wants to do exchanges.” He didn’t go into further detail. I subsequently asked Ryan’s staff if Ryan would like to do an interview explaining how his exchanges would differ. The request was declined. I then asked his staff if they could explain to me how Ryan’s exchanges differ. They didn’t respond.
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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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