Social Security and the Deficit

The Deficit Commission had no business even thinking about Social Security, because Social Security does not contribute to the Federal Deficit and cannot contribute to the Federal deficit!

Social Security is funded only by the payroll tax, which appears on many pay stubs as FICA. Employers pay half and employees pay half; those who are self-employed pay all of it.

Social Security is not allowed to pay out more in benefits than it has in cash, and the government is not allowed to use the Social Security Trust Fund for any other purpose. Right now Social Security has a surplus. That's real money.

Someday in the future, supposedly in 2037, the Social Security Trust Fund could run out of money. Under existing law, if that happens, benefits will be reduced to the amount that Social Security is then receiving in payroll taxes. That's a problem that needs attention, but it has nothing to do with the Federal deficit.

Cutting Social Security won't do anything to relieve the Federal deficit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-miller/does-social-security-have_b_782734.html

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/79093/deep-six-the-deficit-commission-report

Beck on Obama cabinet private-sector experience

Glenn Beck claimed that fewer than 10% of the members of the Obama cabinet "have any experience in the private sector."

WRONG according to the Truth-o-Meter at politifact.com

Public option costs LESS

So the Senator from Aetna tried to claim that a public option for health insurance would cost too much.

WRONG!

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the public option in the current House bill saves $100 billion. A better public option would save more.

Matt Osborne explains:

Quite simply, a non-profit insurance plan doesn't have to waste 25-30% of all premium dollars trying to deny the claim. A nationwide public option would create a very large pool of ratepayers to hold down costs, and force insurance companies to compete in the exchanges. This would help keep down costs across the board.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matt-osborne/reid-doesnt-need-lieberma_b_341833.html

Too complicated

One of the factors that killed the Clinton health care plan was that it was hard to understand, with all that talk about "health care exchanges." And that idea - a purchasing group that individuals could join in order to obtain insurance under group health terms - hasn't gone away.

But what is making it so difficult to understand now, and engendering a certain amount of fear, is not only that the plans under discussion are complex, but that there are too many of them. We have the House plan, two Senate plans, whatever it is that the White House wants, whatever it is that President Obama wants (I'm assuming that people who speak for the White House are speaking for themselves, not for him), and every cockamamie idea that absolutely anyone, in government or out of it, might have floated.

No wonder people believe such bizarre things about "the plan" - no matter how strange an idea is, it's very likely that someone, somewhere, has introduced it

But The New York Times has published a comparison of the major plans being discussed:
.http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/12/us/politics/0812-plan-comparison.html#tab=0

Disclaimer: all of this could change at any moment.

The facts about health-care reform

This article separates facts from some of the fictions being spread around.

NYT: A Primer on the Details of Health Care Reform

Medicare & the public option

My U.S. representative, apparently trying to be a blue dog even though our district is in New York State, has come out against health reform on the specious grounds that it might harm Medicare.

Meanwhile, protesters around the country are screaming "Keep the government's hands off my Medicare."

Well, I have news: Medicare is a government program and always has been. Is it really possible that people who are old enough to be eligible for Medicare have lost track of this?

If so, maybe their medication needs to be adjusted. Or, more charitably, perhaps the fact that they file their claims with private insurance companies (which have contracts to administer Medicare claims), or sign up with a non-governmental HMO operator, has misled them.

I'm not yet eligible for Medicare, but I'm old enough to remember the fight to enact it. And I remember the panic when it started: my mother's sister was in the hospital at the time, and the hospital was determined to discharge her even though she needed hospital care. Everyone thought that all the old people would immediately come to the hospital!

Of course, that didn't happen. But there was a good reason to fear that it might, because until the beginning of Medicare, most old people had no health insurance and many rejected or postponed treatment because of the cost.

It's the relative success of Medicare that created the demand for a national health program that could include everyone. Medicare is far from perfect, but people who have it certainly don't want to give it up.

I believe that a robust public option for health care is essential for any genuine improvement in the situation. Merely expanding the current, dysfunctional system will make things worse, not better. (Actually, I believe that replacing the current non-system with a single-payer system would be best, but I despair of its ever being enacted.)

One suggestion that I've heard is simply to open up Medicare (or a plan just like Medicare, but financially separate from it and called something else) to everyone, at a fair price for those who can afford it. That idea includes a multi-year phase-in, e.g., make it available immediately to anyone 55 or older who wants it (thus taking care of everyone my age who has been forced into early retirement without health benefits, or who would retire voluntarily if health insurance were sure to be available), and then gradually reduce the minimum age.

Oh - on the idea that Medicare isn't the Gummint:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/get-your-goddamn-governme_b_252326.html

President While Black

Andy Borowitz has it right: the whole point of this bizarre "birther" conspiracy is to harass Barack Obama for being president while black.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/president-while-black_b_248742.html

In fact, if there was any doubt about a candidate's eligibility to become President in the last election, it applied to John McCain, who was born in the Canal Zone. While there was no question of Sen. McCain's citizenship, it was uncertain that he qualified as a "natural-born" citizen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/politics/28mccain.html

http://www.snopes.com/politics/mccain/citizen.asp