Do your parents or grandparents collect Social Security? Do they use Medicare? How would you like to have them living with you and having to pay for their medical care? How's that? Can't hear you?
What's the freakin' Repub alternative?
- Thread starter B_spiker067
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Do your parents or grandparents collect Social Security? Do they use Medicare? How would you like to have them living with you and having to pay for their medical care? How's that? Can't hear you?
Sounds good. The only problem with it is that it's impossible to to make fair comparisons between healthcare policies. Both the costs and benefits are kept vague and partially hidden from consumers. As long as this continues (and health insurance providers like it this way), there is no way to accurately shop for healthcare. Thus, the argument that competition will keep prices down is a fallacy.
You're right that most people don't realize that Social Security is paid out year-by-year, so in that way it is like a Ponzi scheme. But you're wrong that it's a program that doesn't work. In fact, judging by the results compared to its original intention (reducing poverty among the elderly), Social Security is probably the most successful US government program ever created. Before SS, elderly Americans routinely lacked food and shelter, with younger relatives struggling to support them. Today, elderly poverty is almost completely eradicated.
It's so successful that the Republican party now considers protecting it as part of its platform. It's popular enough among Americans that it's probably the last federal government agency that they would vote to eliminate, with the possible exception of the military. And all it really needs to stay solvent are regular small tweaks over time.
The real time bomb that threatens to destroy the federal budget is Medicare. And those exploding costs are fueled by privately-owned insurance companies, Big Pharma, and Americans' desire to have more healthcare than they want to pay for. Oh, and also a prescription drug benefit that the GOP passed for purely political purposes, with no plan to ever pay for it.
You call something a fallacy w/o paying attention to what is being talked about. You're talking about buying insurance while I am talking about paying for that broken arm out of pocket with tax free HSA money.
D_Tully Tunnelrat
Experimental Member
Don't forget how your hero, the Gipper, more than doubled the Social Security rate in '82.
But also do not forget that the Republicans have never had a filibuster proof majority, so any legislation that was passed when they were the majority had to have some Democrats going along with it.
Cheers
The modern day conservatives will never admit government can be successful at anything.
Here is the Republican alternative:
Republican Senator Tom Coburn Tells Crying Woman Govt Is Not The Answer
All things being equal I'd would have rather have my SS money in the market. Sure it would have takeng a great hit, but I'd still have something! As it is the Social Security "lock box" has a bunch of IOU's stuffed into it. The govt. could have bought a bunch of commodities with that money (copper (metals), oil, uranium, lands abroad) and then it might not be the crappy ponzi scheme that it is.
Mandatory euthanasia at 30 a la Logan's Run. You would be doing yourself and the planet a huge favor.
Let me guess you're
1) 20 sargon20
or
2) a liberal elite [the planet a huge favor] who is exempt of income taxes, carbon foot print, and your 30 year cap.
:biggrin1:
First of all, people should stop calling SS a Ponzi scheme. It's inaccurate. Second, there is no "lock box." We didn't elect the lock box guy (well, we kind of did). In fact, we made fun of him for saying lock box. Instead, we elected (not really) the easy money, tax cut, no regulation jerk who funneled tons of cash into a system that simpy didn't have enough for sale. So, rather than taking surplusses and expanding Medicare to younger people, and building high speed rail, and developing efficient batteries for electric cars, and modernizing the electrical grid with public sector spending, we sent all that money into the private sector, where, with nothing to buy, it led to the over inflation of real estate and securities values, which eventually crashed back down.
And yeah, it's great to look back in the year 2010 and say "if only 10 years ago we'd invested SS funds in these, in retropspect, very successful investments..." but it doesn't work that way. As long as people keep being born, there will always be workers to pay into SS. It would only be a Ponzi scheme if there came a time when suddenly the birth rate fell to zero and a bunch of retirees were left holding the bag. If it comes to that, we've got bigger problems.
I know there is no lock box. But feel free to peruse this:
U.S. House of Representatives Passes Social Security and Medicare Lockbox Bill (H.R. 2)
Furthermore, what makes you think this is a "hindsight" with a 10 year time frame? This discussion is older than that.
Finally, you really should learn what a ponzi scheme is. They collapse when people stop putting money in either because they don't have it or they don't want to anymore.
P.S. It isn't govt.'s prerogative to do this:
"rather than taking surplusses and expanding Medicare to younger people, and building high speed rail, and developing efficient batteries for electric cars, and modernizing the electrical grid with public sector spending"
These are central planning ideas. Batteries? Who said you get to choose. I say there are better alternatives such as biodiesel from algae.
Paying for a broken arm out of pocket is not an option for most people, just like paying for a car accident out of pocket isn't. That's what insurance is for, to spread out the costs of expensive mishaps among many people over time. Even if it were some kind of government voucher, it would encourage even more overspending by people who know they won't approach the maximum in any given year. Talk about wasteful.
I have no doubt that Democrats are also to blame. Both parties have been bought and sold by big business. I was merely addressing the question of this thread.
Talk about an opportunity for corruption. Who decides what commodities the federal government would invest in? Or which stocks?
I don't claim to have answers to the healthcare crisis. If it were an easy problem to solve, it would have been fixed by now. But it should seem clear by now that more of the same is not going to work. Something new has to be tried, even if it's to find out whether it will work or not. To obstruct a new plan just because you hope it will fail is a cynical ploy that gains some votes but fails the nation.
3664shaken
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A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned.
Social Security takes the money I pay in and distributes it to the retirees, when I retire the money that Paid in is long gone and I have to rely on the workers to pay my SS check.
Ponzi's scheme are destined to collapse if the entity cannot find more initial investors to continue paying off amounts promised. That is what is happening now and will continue to be exacerbated in the future.
Labeling how SS is currently run as a Ponzi scheme is pretty accurate.
Actually for many years Social security money was held outside of the general fund then politicians saw all this money that had been saved and decided to use it. Clinton/Gore used the vast majority of it and severally depleted SS so they could claim that they balanced the budget. That is why the whole 'lock box' debacle got started.
HUH
That was some weird alternate reality rant that I think you need a hit of LSD to understand. You don't believe that do you???????
You have not read a single study about the major problems SS is heading for. Yet you wish to bloviate your nonsense here - WHY?
7 more years, probably less due to the contraction of the economy and SS is in the RED by 2020 the amount of people drawing on SS will be more than putting into and it will get worse.
You really need to read up on this and get an education.
D_Landrocke DeLonguepiece III
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While I do not consider myself a Republican or Democrat (I voted Libertarian), the Republican alternative is about choice. I find it interesting that the party that screams about choice when it comes to killing babies, wants to take your choices away when it comes to healthcare.
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