Social Security is Screwed

[Ridge]

Are Overdue Reports Concealing ObamaCare Impact On Medicare?

By PETER FERRARA Posted 07/06/2010 06:04 PM ET

Every year, the Annual Report of the Social Security Board of Trustees comes out between mid-April and mid-May. Now it's July, and there's no sign of this year's report. What is the Obama administration hiding?

The annual report includes detailed information about Social Security and its financing over the next 75 years, produced by the Office of the Actuary of the Social Security Administration.

The Congressional Budget Office reported last week in its Long Term Budget Outlook that Social Security was already running a deficit this year. According to last year's Social Security Trustees Report, that was not supposed to happen until 2015, with the trust fund to run out completely by 2037.

With the disastrous Obama economy, the great Social Security surplus that started in the Reagan administration is gone completely.

Every year, the federal government has been raiding the Social Security trust funds to take that annual surplus and spend it on the rest of the federal government's runaway spending, leaving the trust funds only with IOUs backed by nothing but politicians' promise to pay it back when it's needed. Now even that annual surplus is gone. How soon will the trust funds run out completely now?

President Obama keeps telling us a fairy tale that he saved us from another Great Depression. But he is actually leading us into another Depression.

The National Bureau of Economic Research scores the recession as officially starting in December 2007. Thirty-one months later, with unemployment still near 10% and the work force still declining, the NBER says it still cannot determine an official end to the recession.

The longest recession since World War II previously was 16 months, with the average being 10 months. By next month, it will be twice as long as the previous postwar record since the latest recession started. The markets echoed by many pundits are now suggesting a renewed double-dip downturn may be starting, with the comprehensive Obama tax rate increases next year poised to pour napalm on this developing bonfire.

How soon will the trust funds run out with this utter failure of 1930s-style Obamanomics?

The implications for Social Security aren't what the Obama administration is hiding by delaying the annual trustees reports. Those annual reports also include information regarding Medicare over the next 75 years. What the administration is trying to hide are sweeping draconian cuts to Medicare resulting from the ObamaCare legislation, which the annual report will document.

The administration is trying to delay the report until mid-August, when it's hoping the country will be on vacation and won't notice. Or maybe the delay is because the White House is trying to bludgeon the chief actuaries for Medicare and Social Security into fudging the numbers.

Those chief actuaries are dedicated, career professionals who have worked their way up the bureaucracy over decades.

During the Reagan administration, the congressional Democrat majorities and the New York Times made clear to us that tampering with the work of the government's career professionals, let alone the career number crunchers, would be grounds for impeachment.

I'm not certain the rule of law applies to this administration, where the Justice Department cites "payback time" as its reason for not prosecuting Black Panther Voting Rights Act violations.

The CBO confessed to $500 billion in Medicare cuts in the first 10 years of Obama-Care alone. Based on those calculations, the minority staff of the Senate Budget Committee estimated the Medicare cuts as $800 billion in the first 10 years of implementation and $2.9 trillion over the first 20 years of ObamaCare. Truthful annual trustees reports would further document these cuts.

These draconian Medicare cuts are primarily how the president got his claims that ObamaCare would reduce the deficit by over $100 billion over the first 10 years, and a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. The cuts involve slashing payments to doctors and hospitals for the medical care they provide to seniors, and decimating the private option Medicare Advantage program that close to one-fourth of seniors have chosen for their coverage because it gives them a better deal.

Such Medicare cuts would create havoc and chaos in health care for seniors. Doctors, hospitals, surgeons and specialists providing critical care to the elderly will shut down and disappear in much of the country, and others would stop serving Medicare patients. If the government is not going to pay, seniors are not going to get the medical treatment they expect.

Yes, Medicare is more than bankrupt over the long run and needs a fundamental overhaul. But the answer is not to tell seniors their guaranteed benefits will not be cut while the government refuses to pay doctors and hospitals for their care.

Nor is it to decimate Medicare Advantage, which instead should be expanded to all of Medicare. Nor is it to trash Medicare and use the money for a whole new entitlement instead, which is what ObamaCare does.

• Ferrara is director of entitlement and budget policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation, general counsel of the American Civil Rights Union and a senior policy adviser on health care to the Heartland Institute.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAna...Concealing-ObamaCare-Impact-On-Medicare-.aspx

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

1930s-style Obamanomics. Yeah, okay.

The sentences pasted here are pretty much all over the place. Black Panther Voting Rights Act violations? Talking about how some cuts are bad but at the same time saying we're running out of money for social security? Improper use of the term "decimate" as well. I'm not sure what to make of it all.

Then again what the heck am I doing in a politics thread?

 

[Krynn72]

/sees the word "obamacare"

/loses any potential value the argument has

Plus the whole article is ridiculous. Obama has been in economics since the 30s? Damn, and I thought him starting the war in Afghanistan was impressive.

 

[Warped]

2037?? the world ends in just 3 years buddy

also chances are I won't be alive past 2020

 

[Xevrex]

The article is so disgustingly biased that I couldn't bear to read it all the way through. The only things I did notice were the blatant aspersions cast toward the Obama administration that were pretty much just taking what started during the BUSH ADMINISTRATION and bequeathing it to Obama, thus not only making it his problem (which it technically is now) but also putting him at fault for it in conservatives' eyes.

The article is also complete conjecture. The fact that the annual report isn't out doesn't automatically signify that the Obama Administration has devious, dark plans to destroy the health care system. They even gave an estimated time of release -- if it didn't show up at all it would be a different story. But the alarmist disposition that conservative pundits and the majority of republicans in general have toward him makes them twist the delay to the worst thing imaginable; it's just more fear-mongering.

Hell, the article jumps from place to place. It segues from the delay of the report to a complete tirade on the economy -- or should I say, Obamany (haha, a shitty pun). It's more or less just another "Let's-blame-Obama-for-the-economy-because-he's-a-democrat" article. They completely ignore the beginning during Bush's term.

The bit about the government cutting Medicare Advantage is not a jab at senior citizens; it's a jab at private companies' varying prices on Medicare Advantage, as they set the cost for it and it differs from place to place in the Country.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62J1FS20100322

Studies have shown huge cost variations in different parts of the country with little difference in health outcomes. The legislation provides for Medicare to test payment systems that are thought to promote better coordination and efficiency of care while maintaining or improving the quality of care.

Because the Health Care overhaul is a systematic change, the government will soon allow for what they see to be a healthy fix for exploitative prices from private companies. The statement toward the end of the OP's article "Such Medicare cuts would create havoc and chaos .... seniors are not going to get the medical treatment they expect." is just more baseless conjecture that over-exaggerates the severity of the changes.

Overall, a biased and trashy article filled with nothing more than frenzied republican hatred for Obama.

EDIT: So I decided in the middle of writing the original post to read the entire article.

 

[Warped]

things always balance themselves out. in a country where even the umployed live like kings compared to 80% of the world I don't think we have to worry about anything for a while. As for me I'll keep saving my money in video games. games like ICO will probably still be worth something 40 years from now when I want to retire

 

[Ridge]

taking what started during the BUSH ADMINISTRATION and bequeathing it to Obama

December 2007, 11 months after the democrats took control of both houses of Congress...

 

[Xevrex]

December 2007, 11 months after the democrats took control of both houses of Congress...

Alright, sure.

Democrats in both houses of Congress =/= Obama, who was elected in November 2008 and inaugurated January 2009.

 

[Ridge]

But he was in Congress before that.

 

[Xevrex]

But he was in Congress before that.

Yes. So was every other democratic congressman. He himself did not do anything that the other congressmen of his party did not do themselves.

 

[Ridge]

Just pointing out that before he was elected President, he played a part in many of the problems he campaigned against, but has since done nothing to overturn them...

 

[Xevrex]

Just pointing out that before he was elected President, he played a part in many of the problems he campaigned against, but has since done nothing to overturn them...

... This is presuming that the democratically-controlled Congress was the direct cause of the problem... A reasonable assumption for a republican, of course. But the recession was much deeper than congress. The legislation does not send us spiraling into economic decline; the legislation does not have as strong of an effect on the economy as the free market does.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Recession-What-is-it-and-How-did-we-get-there

Read this article. It's pretty old, before they announced we were in a recession, but it applies so far as what seems to have been the primary cause, which was the housing bubble burst. To quickly summarise that article (though if you've paid attention to the news over the past few years, this topic has been debated ad nauseum), it was caused by house buyers who expected to refinance their homes at a fixed interest rate, assuming the housing prices would go up, which is not what happened -- the prices went down, interest shot up, they couldn't pay their mortgages and were foreclosed on, and the bank had already sold the mortgages that were worthless to financial institutions around the world and suddenly this whole crisis becomes less of a legislative ****-up but more of a capitalistic-market one. What I'm saying is that blaming the democratically-controlled congress for something that they couldn't control is using the natural enemy of your party as a scapegoat, which is again reasonable as both parties do it.

 

[Ridge]

While I do agree that about 85-90% of the reason we are the way we are right now is because of banks selling toxic mortgages, part of the problem was a previous president's requiring banks to offer mortgages to people that had terrible credit, and were unlikely to be able to afford the payments, should the economy take even a little spill, which happened in 2001, and slowly cascaded over the years into what we have now...

 

[Xevrex]

While I do agree that about 85-90% of the reason we are the way we are right now is because of banks selling toxic mortgages, part of the problem was a previous president's requiring banks to offer mortgages to people that had terrible credit, and were unlikely to be able to afford the payments, should the economy take even a little spill, which happened in 2001, and slowly cascaded over the years into what we have now...

Exactly! It was just a process that carried over from 2001 because of this subprime mortgage crisis. Really, the primary cause just built-up over previous years into what we have now, meaning that the legislative branch in 2007 and most certainly not our current president of 2009 and 2010 are to blame for the economic recession.

 

[No Limit]

December 2007, 11 months after the democrats took control of both houses of Congress...

So republicans had control for 6 years prior to that and it was the democrats in 11 months that crashed the economy.

Do you not understand why nobody takes you seriously? You just make shit up.

What specific actions did the democrats take in those 11 months that caused a recession?

 

[Ridge]

Stimulus bill made a bad situation terribly worse.

 

[Krynn72]

Or did it?

 

[Ridge]

Dramatically de-valuing the dollar while destroying consumer confidence, yeah, I'd say so...

 

[Mr Stabby]

Social security will probably go bankrupt becuase since Reagan, administrations have been taking social security money to pay for other stuff like defence.

It amazes me what politicans can get away with in America.

 

[V-Man339]

The article is so disgustingly biased that I couldn't bear to read it all the way through.

So... this bears the question of why the **** anybody takes this kind of shit seriously. Then again, people think Fox News is believable and worth watching daily, so God only knows...

 

[CptStern]

lol at link in OP that was parsed:

"http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnal...Medicare-.aspx "

I like my news with a little anal ..however in this instance I think it was referring to how anal Ridge is

 

[No Limit]

Stimulus bill made a bad situation terribly worse.

The stimulus bill wasn't passed until Obama was elected long AFTER the recession. But that's not what you originally said, originally you blamed the recission on the democrats in congress. Now what specific actions did they take in those 11 months to cause the recession?

 

[Ridge]

The stimulus bill wasn't passed until Obama was elected long AFTER the recession. But that's not what you originally said, originally you blamed the recission on the democrats in congress. Now what specific actions did they take in those 11 months to cause the recession?

Obama passed the SECOND stimulus bill. The first was passed by Bush in the last couple months of 2008...

 

[No Limit]

Obama passed the SECOND stimulus bill. The first was passed by Bush in the last couple months of 2008...

You're like a little mentally retarded person.

Bush passed the bank bailout, it wasn't a stimulus. But your lack of understanding in this doesn't have anything to do with what I just asked you.

Lets try again, you said the democrats were responsible for the recession because they had control of congress in the 11 months before the recession occured. So what specific things did these democrats do to crash our economy? Again, the bank bail out came long after the recession started.

 

[No Limit]

I was looking for a different thread and saw this.

Every year, the Annual Report of the Social Security Board of Trustees comes out between mid-April and mid-May. Now it's July, and there's no sign of this year's report. What is the Obama administration hiding?

The report came earlier this month:

http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/08/05/social-securitymedicare-trustees-report-finally-emerges/

After a long wait, the Social Security Board of Trustees Report for 2010 has finally been released. It shows that changes through the Affordable Care Act will extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by 12 years, to 2029. The life of the Social Security Trust Fund remained unchanged at 2037, despite the worst recession since the Great Depression, and far less revenue flowing into the coffers through the payroll tax. After that, the program would be able to pay 78% of benefits, even if we do nothing.

So I guess what the Obama administration was hiding was that their healthcare bill will actually increase solvency of medicare for an additional 12 years. And even in the greatest economic down turn since the great depression the solvency of social security remains where it was before this recession started. ****ing bastards.

 

[Ridge]

I guess if you don't have 2 brain cells to rub together, that sounds great.

To sentient life forms, though, it looks like what people were suspecting; just like they have for decades, the government is cooking the books to hide it's shortcomings...

 

[No Limit]

You originally said the government was hiding something because the report was taking so long to release. Now it turns out that if anything the report was positive. Medicare will live 12 years longer and social security will remain where it was. So the government wasn't trying to hide anything as you originally suggested.

Since thinking is hard for you I don't expect you to understand how your original suggestion once again turned to be total bullshit, so don't worry about it.

 

[StarBob]

I didn't read any of this, but Social Security has been screwed ever since the baby boomers were born. In the next 10-20 years as all of them break into Social Securitiy age and retire, it's gonna put waaaaay more of a strain on that system than can be handled. The system is already being crushed by people living longer and a lack of comparative working citizens. I'm hoping I can start saving enough to retire at a decent age, which will probably be five or ten years later than it averages today when I make it there. I also want to have good life insurance so that I can spend the shit out of my retirement funds and when I die no one will have to worry about the costs and potential debts associated.

 

[Ridge]

You originally said the government was hiding something because the report was taking so long to release. Now it turns out that if anything the report was positive. Medicare will live 12 years longer and social security will remain where it was. So the government wasn't trying to hide anything as you originally suggested.

Since thinking is hard for you I don't expect you to understand how your original suggestion once again turned to be total bullshit, so don't worry about it.

The reason it took so long to come out is because they had to do Zimbabwean math to make it look good, and then to hide their changes...

 

[Eejit]

Really? Do you have a source for that other than the voices whispering it to you in the night?

 

[Ridge]

http://www.businessinsider.com/here...ity-report-is-much-worse-than-it-looks-2010-8

“[Much of Medicare’s projected improvement] is premised on the assumption that productivity growth in the health care sector can match that in the economy overall, rather than lag behind as has been the case in the past. This report notes that achieving this objective for long periods of time may prove difficult.”

 

[Neutrino]

I have to say there's nothing like a copy and pasted editorial to totally convince me to change my political views.

 

[Ridge]

All news is vaguely disguised editorial.

You're not going to find a government document that says they are lying to you.

 

[Warped]

This country is falling into the shitter. Ever since the 70s we've gone downhill imo. It could have happened before that too. but one this will always stay true with America: War never changes

 

[No Limit]

I didn't read any of this, but Social Security has been screwed ever since the baby boomers were born. In the next 10-20 years as all of them break into Social Securitiy age and retire, it's gonna put waaaaay more of a strain on that system than can be handled. The system is already being crushed by people living longer and a lack of comparative working citizens. I'm hoping I can start saving enough to retire at a decent age, which will probably be five or ten years later than it averages today when I make it there. I also want to have good life insurance so that I can spend the shit out of my retirement funds and when I die no one will have to worry about the costs and potential debts associated.

That's actually not really true. Social security is fine, it has been running a surplus for a very long time and will continue to run a surplus until 2017 if nothing in the system is changed. So why are politicians freaking out? Because the surplus was supposed to go in to a trust fund that would only be used for social security. And when Washington saw all that money meant for the poor and the middle class just sitting there they decided to take that money and give the rich 2 huge tax cuts, start 2 wars, and pass a 2 trillion dollar medicare benefit to secure senior votes. So they spent money that didn't belong to them and now they are freaking out because it's time to repay that debt. When over a decade ago Al Gore proposed a "lock box" everybody laughed. Not that funny any more.

“[Much of Medicare’s projected improvement] is premised on the assumption that productivity growth in the health care sector can match that in the economy overall, rather than lag behind as has been the case in the past. This report notes that achieving this objective for long periods of time may prove difficult.”

This report matches projections that the Bush administration released. The only difference is the 12 year medicare expension. You can try to pretend that expension is not realistic but I don't see how you can do that when we cut over 500 billion dollars from medicare under the health bill that passed. Now as long as you know how to do some very basic math it's clear that medicare solvancy would have to be extended as a result of it having to spend 500 billion dollars less over the next decade. It's not "Zimbabwean math" it's basic elementary math. And I don't know why you picked Zimbabwe (well ok I do) since Zimbabwe probably has higher math scores than we do, but that's for another topic.

So they didn't hide anything, the projections are no different than what the Bush administration would have published. The reason it took this long is that the healthcare bill didn't pass well in to this year and they needed to take that in to account before they could start on the report.

 

[Ridge]

will continue to run a surplus until 2017 if nothing in the system is changed.

Kinda like the largest generation in American history retiring and switching from paying into and instead taking out of?

 

[No Limit]

What the hell are you talking about? Social security will continue to run a surplus until 2017 (take in more money then it spends). Are you denying that?

 

[Ridge]

Yes, yes I am. A huge percentage of the workforce is retiring in the next few years. As such, they will no longer be paying into Social Security, but they WILL be withdrawing it...

 

[No Limit]

Wow Ridge, you should probably get the CBO on the phone. Because I'm sure those idiots didn't think of that when they put together their social security projections.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/96xx/doc9649/08-20-SocialSecurityUpdate.pdf

****ing idiot economists with their fancy edumications and shit. All they had to do was ask Ridge.

Oh wait:

Today, Social Security’s revenues each year are greater than its outlays, but as the baby-boom generation (people born between 1946 and 1964) continues to age, growth in the number of Social Security beneficiaries will accelerate, and outlays will grow substantially faster than revenues. CBO projects that outlays will first exceed revenues
in 2019 and that the Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2049.