Does obama want to make cuts in Social Security?

[bigrebnc1775]

Obama is not a leader. He does not want to own or take respondisility for problems.

Really? Then why is the right complaining about everything he's accomplished?

Because everything he has accomplished is not good for America.

 

[kyzr]

Whats indefensible is that democrats are hypocrites. They scream and cry that Republicans want to take away social security but we see who the true villains are. Defend if you can

When SS was started the average age was 63, and SS started at 65. Since then the average age is about 78 and SS is going broke. I applaud the Debt Commission's recommendations. Its better tyhan doing nothing. My argument to retirees is that their benefits are not being cut, its just that the younger folks will need to work a few years more to keep SS solvent. Here is the big reason: to do nothing means that retiree SS benefits get cut 25% to keep it solvent.
I vote for the Debt Commission's option, instead of only getting 75% of my promised SS check.

OH so it's true the democrats are the ones wanting to take away someone Social Security?

Since when does "saving SS" by supporting the Debt Commission equate to "taking away anything"??
Reading comprehension issues??

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Either we cut SS - or it collapses.
Simple and true. Everyone has know this for 20-30 years.

 

[kyzr]

EXACTLY!! and SS is an easier fix than Medicare. I haven't heard what the Debt Commission's recommendation for Medicare is. Medicare is just about bankrupt already, SS was good thru 2037 or so.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

When SS was started the average age was 63, and SS started at 65. Since then the average age is about 78 and SS is going broke. I applaud the Debt Commission's recommendations. Its better tyhan doing nothing. My argument to retirees is that their benefits are not being cut, its just that the younger folks will need to work a few years more to keep SS solvent. Here is the big reason: to do nothing means that retiree SS benefits get cut 25% to keep it solvent.
I vote for the Debt Commission's option, instead of only getting 75% of my promised SS check.

OH so it's true the democrats are the ones wanting to take away someone Social Security?

Since when does "saving SS" by supporting the Debt Commission equate to "taking away anything"??
Reading comprehension issues??

When you cut something aren't you taking it away? Or at least part of it?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

Either we cut SS - or it collapses.
Simple and true. Everyone has know this for 20-30 years.

It might be true but why is that democrats say the republicans want to take away Social security. When it'd the democrats doing it?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

The way I look at it Social Security is an entitlement program and the healthcare law is another entitlalment program. Now since they are wanting to cut SS what makes you that defend the healthcare law think they will not in the future cut your healthcare?

 

[Greenbeard]

EXACTLY!! and SS is an easier fix than Medicare. I haven't heard what the Debt Commission's recommendation for Medicare is. Medicare is just about bankrupt already, SS was good thru 2037 or so.

Oddly enough they seem to largely echo what's in the ACA, aside from the call for more cost-sharing and comprehensive tort reform:

Medium Term: Fully offset the cost of the “Doc Fix” by asking doctors and other health providers, lawyers, and individuals to take responsibility for slowing health care cost growth. Offsets include:

• Pay doctors and other providers less, improve efficiency, and reward quality by speeding up payment reforms and increasing drug rebates
• Pay lawyers less and reduce the cost of defensive medicine by adopting comprehensive tort reform
• Expand cost-sharing in Medicare to promote informed consumer health choices and spending
• Expand successful cost containment demonstrations
• Strengthen IPAB
• Recommend additional health savings (illustrative examples to follow)

Long-Term Health Care Savings

• Set global target for total federal health expenditures after 2020 (Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, exchange subsidies, employer health exclusion), and review costs every 2 years. Keep growth to GDP+1%.
• If costs have grown faster than targets (on average of previous 5 years), require President to submit and Congress to consider reforms to lower spending, such as:
  • Increase premiums (or further increase cost-sharing)
  • Overhaul the fee-for-service system
  • Develop a premium support system for Medicare
  • Add a robust public option and/or all-payer system in the exchange
  • Further expand authority of IPAB

They also look through "illustrative cost savings" of different ideas, with the Medicare-related ones being:

• Place Dual-Eligible Individuals in Medicaid Managed Care
• Cut Medicare Payments for Bad Debt
• Expand ACOs, Payment Bundling, and Other Payment Reform (require IPAB to recommend cuts if savings are not realized)
• Cut Federal Spending on Graduate and Indirect Medical Education
• Accelerate Phase-in of DSH Payment Cuts, Medicare Advantage Cuts and Home Health Cuts in PPACA

So mostly it's: implement the payment and delivery system reforms that are already about to be implemented, empower the newly created IPAB even more, make the cuts that are already being made, and a few scattered ideas that aren't already law.

 

[AllieBaba]

"The plan would raise the gas tax, slash defense spending and farm subsidies and bring down health-care costs by clamping down on medical malpractice suits. The Social Security retirement age would rise to 68 in about 2050 and 69 in about 2075. "

"The co-chairmen proposed a $3.8 trillion deficit-cutting plan yesterday that would trim Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates and eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction. It would reduce the annual deficit from $1.3 trillion this year to about $400 billion by 2015 and start reducing the $13.7 trillion national debt. "

"The plan would raise the gas tax, slash defense spending and farm subsidies and bring down health-care costs by clamping down on medical malpractice suits. The Social Security retirement age would rise to 68 in about 2050 and 69 in about 2075. "

I can't believe there's not more fuss over this.

But then the left has never cared anything about the elderly, disabled, the poor, and the military.

Fuckwits.

Deficit Plan Matches $3.8 Trillion Math With Tough Politics - Bloomberg

 

[Greenbeard]

I can't believe there's not more fuss over this.

But then the left has never cared anything about the elderly, disabled, the poor, and the military.

We can't all be bleeding heart conservatives.

 

[kyzr]

I can't believe there's not more fuss over this.

But then the left has never cared anything about the elderly, disabled, the poor, and the military.

We can't all be bleeding heart conservatives.

Nice posts. The non-bleeding hearts would analyze the situation this way.
1. 50% of medial resources are used by 5% of the sickest. We may need to ration/triage medical care to keep medicare solvent, especially keeping illegals out of the medical system
2. 25% of medical resources are used during the last few weeks of life. Someone (Dr. Cuddy?) needs to say, "sorry but there is really no hope of recovery at this point, we recommend moving them to the hospice room"...or something like that...

 

[bigrebnc1775]

I can't believe there's not more fuss over this.

But then the left has never cared anything about the elderly, disabled, the poor, and the military.

We can't all be bleeding heart conservatives.

2012 campigan slogan
Republicans
in 2010 obama wanted to cut Social security

If this was a repblican saying that Social security should be cut you **** less stupid POS democrats would be screaming bloody murder.

 

[Greenbeard]

1. 50% of medial resources are used by 5% of the sickest. We may need to ration/triage medical care to keep medicare solvent, especially keeping illegals out of the medical system

There was a paper out not too long ago suggesting that an increasing prevalence of ten chronic conditions was responsible for virtually the entire increase in Medicare spending over the past two decades. And their analysis suggests three obvious mechanisms for dealing with those kinds of costs that I think are spot on:

• Fight the rising prevalence of these chronic conditions using evidence-based preventive care and other prevention efforts
• Recognize that lots of these people have multiple chronic conditions and that this demands a coordinated, integrated approach to their care; a fragmented delivery system driven by fee-for-service payments is not going to be nearly as effective for them and its certainly going to be more costly
• Promote chronic disease management programs that will give these people the tools to manage their own conditions and not put pressure on our health resources unnecessarily

If you start moving along those lines, I don't think you need to consider anything close to explicit rationing. At the very least, you've got to start by delivering more effective care and aiming for a healthier population and take stock of where that's gotten you. I suspect the results of that (fairly obvious) strategy will be very positive.

2. 25% of medical resources are used during the last few weeks of life. Someone (Dr. Cuddy?) needs to say, "sorry but there is really no hope of recovery at this point, we recommend moving them to the hospice room"...or something like that...

I agree there needs to be a serious national discussion about end-of-life care but if I learned one thing in the past year it's that we don't have enough grown-ups at the helm to have that discussion.

 

[AllieBaba]

I can't believe there's not more fuss over this.

But then the left has never cared anything about the elderly, disabled, the poor, and the military.

We can't all be bleeding heart conservatives.

Conservatives usually don't go for de-funding the military. My point is that Obama campaigns on a platform of caring for the people; increased spending to allow more supervision and support of the people by a caring government. He campaigned on a premise that the right would defund these programs and therefore was a threat to the elderly, single parents, the poor.....yet he is working on defunding them as quickly as he can. He wants to do as much damage as he can before he's ousted.

 

[Revere]

No "debt comission" that uses Obama's 24 percent spending increases as a baseline and doesn't completely roll back Obamacare can be credible.

Grown-ups don't pull the plug on grandpa because they feel compelled to defer to someone else's ethos of what is a greater good for society.