Senators love to suggest raising the Social Security retirement age, when in fact, Social Security is fairly stable financially and with a little tweaking, will be fine, providing a steady, foundational income for every American, many of whom will have very little other retirement income. You can be pretty sure those Senators and their loved ones are millionaires, and/or have sedentary jobs that they expect to work at until the good Lord takes them home, so any cuts in Social Security definitely won't affect them!
The real problem in the entitlements area is health care, including Medicare. (An even bigger problem is a bloated war budget, but I won't get into that here.) That's where the big deficits are expected, because health care demand is increasing at rates far above the rise in GDP. So why don't Senators suggest cuts there? Two reasons. One, they're politically chicken. And two, lots of wonderful special interests group in the health care field (hospitals, doctors, lawyers, big pharma, medical equipment, etc.) directly benefit from that spending, so it's simply much harder to cut.
Frankly, with our current political paralysis, I don't see anything good happening along those lines until the big crisis hits, ie. foreigners refuse to buy our debt and the currency crumbles. Then, all kinds of bad things are going to happen.
I agree. But we who rely on Social Security in our "retiring" years may be spending more on medical if Medicare is chopped. Medicare fraud seems to be a big culprit too. My husband and I spend over $10,000 per year for supplemental policies and co-pays now. Don't have much left over to visit the grandchildren.
ReplyDeleteSuggestion to the chickens in DC: Negotiate prices with hospitals, pharma, medical equipment, etc. like the BIG INSURANCE COMPANIES do!!! Just a suggestion...
ReplyDeleteLet me elaborate a little, because I agree with you in both of the things you said. Health care spending in general is out of control, unlike other industrialized countries, who control it much better. So it seems to me you can control it in one of two ways: reinstitute some kind of competitive market, so that costs are controlled; or two, institute a comprehensive government system (Medicare for all) thtat controls costs and keeps them to about 10% or so of GDP, like other countries do. Both ways mean 'rationing', ie. people can't have everyting they want (or even need). We can't go on spending 17+% of GDP (and rising) on health care. It will simply bankrupt us.
ReplyDeleteSo I'm curious, how did you come up with that name...Gra'ma Banana?
ReplyDeleteMy mom-in-law knew that I thought bananas were the "perfect fruit" and that I loved to eat them. She called me "Bananaface" and I started signing all my letters to her with a hand-drawn picture of a banana with eyes and a smiley mouth. When I had grandchildren, my son said I had a chance to decide what I wanted them to call me and since their other grandmother wanted to be called "Guppie" (don't ask), I decided to use Banana 'cause little kids have an easy time with either banana or 'nana and I was used to the nickname. Thus, Gra'ma Banana was created. It is a lot of fun to play with my "Logo" (which is a banana with big red Halloween lips and sunglasses) by changing the sunglasses. I am a graphic artist and have all the photoshop stuff to make cards that I can attach to all their birthday presents and as my signature on all the letters I send them. Whew! I went off on that, didn't I? Thanks for asking.
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