Bills & Pills!

Back in 2005, just four short years ago, President Bush sounded a warning bell about the financial health of and the outlook for both Social Security and Medicare. Led by Harry Reed, the liberals went into full attack mode and declared that both were doing just fine. Furthermore, they trumpeted that the President’s announcements were nothing more than scare tactics which were motivated purely by political dogma. And, as a result nothing was done!

Really, well now we learn that the health of those two programs has now eroded to such an extent that in eight years time the health insurance program will be unable to pay all its hospital bills. In short Medicare is in imminent danger of fiscal collapse and Social Security is not too far behind.

The recent report revealed that the trust funds from which Social Security payments are made would be unable to pay retirees full benefits by 2037, four years earlier than forecast less than a year ago. A further revelation was that by 2016 this trust fund will begin to spend more money than it takes in and, again, that timeframe is one year earlier than previously predicted.

Now compound this with the news that unemployment numbers are still on the rise and some 560,000 jobs were lost last month alone. As a direct result of this there is an inevitable “double whammy” because more unemployed means more claims and more unemployed means that less people are paying payroll taxes.

Not surprisingly, the liberals’ first answer to everything is to raise taxes for employees from 12.4 to 14.4 percent. The other idea being floated is to reduce benefits by 13 percent or some combination of the two.

A major plank in the Obama platform has been to institute some kind of socialized medical coverage for Americans. Of course he insists that if an individual is happy with their current program they can stay that way. How long do you think it would take for an employer to ditch their private plans and thus boost their bottom line?

It’s also interesting to contemplate how such a scheme would be funded. For a start, it’s a given that an employer’s ability to deduct premiums from their tax liability would be curtailed or abolished. Or, the administration would tax the benefits to the employees. And, looking at the British or Canadian model, it’s a certainty that there would be limits on treatments that could be prescribed.

Welcome to Obama’s Brave New World!