Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us

AZYooper said...
That is like claiming you owe millions of dollars for every penny you will spend from birth to death the day you are born and ignore all your earnings.

Future tax revenues are not ignored in unfunded liability calculations, they are subtracted out, so it is not like claiming that.

Haha, it's times like this that I love being a Canadian where I pay jack sh** for my meds and health care is free like a bird.

AZYooper, I guess the best thing to do is wait and see...that will be the tale of the tape.

If our debt keeps rising, republicans and democrats and the Fed keep monetizing our debt, pumping the DOW and SPX and our dollars keep shrinking to Weimar republic deutschmark levels of oblivion, well....

FWIW, I really hope you're right, and I'm wrong but every indicator, figure and past history shows we are in a mess of epic proportions. We'll see.

Social security is easy to fix.

Medicare is only a hard to fix because a massive number of Americans have been brainwashed into refusing to consider the dozens of health systems that work better than ours and cost half as much per person with no measurable difference in health. In fact, the people in most developed countries are healthier than we are.

What we are seeing today regarding large deficits and the sudden need to cut social security, medicare, and medicaid benefits is no mistake but was planned decades ago through deliberate policy decisions. The Reagan administration started planned a "Starve the Beast" plan that would result in cutting tax revenue (government income) over it and the two different Bush administrations, that would ultimately lead to deficits and calls from that very Republican party that the only solution is to cut social security, medicare, and medicaid. The Republicans have hated those programs since their inception and have been after them ever since. If they cannot eliminate those programs entirely then they'll reduce the benefits to a degree that they are useless.

Oh wait I forgot the repubs want to make them "financially viable over the long term" (poll tested dialog I am sure) and how by reducing the payouts that people receive through those programs (through adjusting how inflation is calculated). You know what the average retired person on Social Security gets on a monthly basis? $1,230 a month in 2012. Sure, lets cut their paycheck (how the heck one can pay rent, buy food, pay utilities, and live on that amount is amazing to me). And adjust the age inwhich one can begin claiming benefits (people's health varies greatly and try saying to a 65 year old who's health is on the decline that they must work a few more years).

All of those programs can be easily sure-ed up with simple adjustments. Like currently only the first $100k of people's income goes toward the Social Security, Medicare and other payroll deductions -- remove that cap and let all of one's income be considered. That would make Social Security such programs viable for the next 75 years

Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were created to fight destitute poverty (the kind of stuff you see in the 3rd world that was happening here) to those who couldn't earn enough to live due to disability, old age and other unfortunate situations. We start cutting back on any of the benefits or who can claim those benefits and it will return. I think as a decent society, we have a responsibility to make sure no one here has to live destitute like before those programs existed.

iPoop said...
All of those programs can be easily sure-ed up with simple adjustments. Like currently only the first $100k of people's income goes toward the Social Security, Medicare and other payroll deductions -- remove that cap and let all of one's income be considered. That would make such programs viable for the next 75 years

Hey iPoop, I decided to test this with some quick and dirty numbers using a workforce of 134 million. Hopefully we don't lose 170 million jobs to the sequester like the House rep from California said last week :) If you add all their income over 113k (its 113,400 I think, not 100) on the 15 pc of the country making over 100k, it only adds about fifty billion dollars a year. We are curretnly spending 1,600 billion on these three programs, or 64 pc of tax revenues.

percent of workforce	income-100k	addt'l revenue
0.0012	1,400,000.00	13,957,440,000.00
0.014	142,000.00	16,516,304,000.00
0.014	87,000.00	10,119,144,000.00
0.02	53,000.00	8,806,480,000.00
0.05	4,300.00	1,786,220,000.00
		51,185,588,000.00

Yea I did for sure- I just realized the data was households not workers-I did not think 15% of Americans made over $113,400 a year!!! Which my data used. So that number is well less than half in reality.

Bottom line I really think I'm right but I really hope you are. I see these doomsday prepper people and realize with Crohn's if I lived through the apocalypse all I would need would be a bullet and a gun because I wouldn't survive anyway. Hopefully it won't get that bad even assuming I'm right ;)

" I just find it to be a moral affront to say we need to reduce the benefits and limit those who are eligible to such programs, as suffering and poverty are what the result is."

Word, anyone should be able to have access to healthcare. And benefits should go UP not down.

"For example, I believe we can build a few less tanks, battle ships, and such and instead make sure our most vulnerable have healthcare and enough food to survive. Gut the pentagon budget as we pay more on defense than the rest of the world combined, and we have military bases in Germany, the Philippines, Japan, and other places for no real reason.

"

Agree with everything said here also, except the last part. There is a reason, when you're abroad in Germany or Philippines, you get to hit the red light districts. That's plenty reasons... *drool*

"Somedude, alas those fabled 'redlight districts' do have a cost and that being the increased medical costs of treating STDs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"

everything that is fun in life always has to have a price...grrrrr *annoying*

These programs CAN be fixed relatively easily. Trouble is the Democrats have no will to do anything. The Republicans are the only ones willing to discuss the problem and whenever they try to discuss solutions they get lambasted for wanting to eliminate social programs, which isn't even true. I agree with taxing ALL income for FICA, not just up to a certain level. I also think that these programs should be means tested. Why on earth do Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, et al need a social security check? The Democrats aren't even willing to discuss this!

The trouble is nothing is "trickling" down under Obama either. Since Obama has been president the rich have been getting richer and poor have been getting poorer. There's one huge "problem" that is responsible for this which I don't know if anyone has a solution for:

The better off people know how to manage their affairs so that they have more money coming in than expenses going out. They know how to make money and that's not going to change.

The worse off people don't know how to manage their lives so that they have more money coming in than their expenses. So, to some extent, the rich are always going to get richer and the poor are going to get poorer. Raising the minimum wage isn't even going to change this. How many poor people own pets which they can't really afford? How many poor people smoke, buy lottery tickets, and drink alcohol that they can't afford? I've been a manager and business man for decades and I can't tell you how many people don't even try to get ahead when they do have the power to do so. I have workers that work for me, wanting extra hours to help pay bills and once the bills are caught up they not only don't want the extra hours anymore but they want to cut back even more, like it's a crime to save up and have a thousand dollars in the bank.

The only way out of that is to have a socialistic society and I don't want that.

Gary, well up to this point obama has only made a few small changes that really have any effect on income-inequality (the most recent was extending the Bush tax rates for everyone but those who make more than $400k) and a few temporary stimulus measures. The key thing is some sort of broad tax reform that eliminates some of the loopholes that the rich enjoy (off shore tax havens, tax deductions on a 2nd house, 3rd house ... come on!). Yeah cuz the system is rigged in the favor of the rich, they have the loopholes and lobbyists on their side. That somehow capital gains and investment income should be taxed at a lower interest rate then income earned through a paycheck (all Mitt Romney earned was based on capital gains income at the much lower 13% rate). I say all income should be taxed the same whether you earned it on a paycheck or through a stock investment. And I'd throw in the Buffet Rule so no CEO pays a lower rate then his/her secretary (make it a floor of 35% rate or something).

There is nothing anyone can do about poor decisions, whether that is cigarettes or gambling other than education. Certainly, that is an area where income inequality hits hard, grow up poor stay poor because of bad education systems in poor areas. We all hear of this idealized american dream where anybody can start off poor and be rich if only he/she tries hard enough. I think it is becoming more of a fable these days, as there is much more upward mobility in dozens of other countries (from Canada to England) than in the good old US of A. Maybe we'll start boating people from here to there for a land of better opportunity soon

garylousiville said...
Ipoop: I actually agree with a lot you say, although not everything.

Gary, only a lot of what I say? Haha oh I will fully convert you to a complete left-wing nut job like me, before I am done with you (my wife works in environmental conservation and we both drive Priuses).

Many of the things I say are from the liberal/progressive platform and it is really quite reasonable and makes a lot of sense when you filter out the overly partisan attacks, demagoguery, and so forth that many media outlets on both sides spurt out without any sense of shame when talking about these points.

There's lots of people calling themselves independents (I am registered undeclared/independent), but they usually really strongly lean toward one party or another. I've swung pretty hard-left lately but I have voted for both republicans and democrats in both presidential and local elections.