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Post by lasher on Mar 25, 2008 10:41:38 GMT -6
Employers may coordinate with Medicare on healthcare provisions for seniors. An AARP legal challenge is turned away.By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer March 25, 2008 WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court on Monday gave employers a green light to reduce health benefits for millions of retirees who turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare. The justices turned away a legal challenge from AARP, the nation's leading senior citizens lobby, which had contended these lower benefits for older retirees violated the federal law against age discrimination. The court's action upholds, in effect, a rule adopted last year by federal regulators that says the "coordination of retiree health benefits with Medicare" is exempt from the anti-age-bias law. <snip> Employers in California, large and small, say benefits for retirees already have become a casualty of soaring medical costs. "In some cases, it's become a millstone around their necks," said Jack Kyser, chief economist of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "Corporations aren't all heartless, but in many cases, you're competing with multinational corporations that don't have quite the obligations that domestic firms have." www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-scotus25mar25,1,5568623.story
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Post by judes on Mar 25, 2008 15:58:21 GMT -6
Wow, on the same day the daunting report on medicare's insolvency comes out. How appropriate! How can Paulson sit there and tell poor retirees who rely on medicare and social security that they may be in trouble, while at the same time he is using tax payer funds to bail out his rich banker buddies? Is this a cruel irony of some kind? I would rather have my tax dollars going to poor retirees in need of medical care rather than rich investment bankers. biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/080325/032508_soc_sec_trustees_report.html?.v=8Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, saying that Social Security is "financially unsustainable," called Tuesday for quick action to keep the system strong and released a report detailing the program's funding shortfalls.
The federal government will have to start paying back what it owes the Social Security trust fund in 2017 so the program can continue paying 100% of benefits. By 2041, if the system is left unchanged, Social Security will only be able to pay out 78% of benefits promised to future retirees.
Medicare a bigger problem
Medicare, which was also addressed in Tuesday's report, has an even larger and more immediate funding deficit to address.
The Medicare program is already taking in less than it has committed to pay out, and the trustees forecast that the Medicare trust fund will be depleted by 2019, at which point Medicare would only be able to pay out 78% of costs.
Medicare was designed to be funded by three sources: payroll taxes; Medicare premiums paid by beneficiaries; and general revenue or money from income taxes.
The payroll tax portion of that funding comes from a 2.9% tax on all wages - half of which is paid by workers and half by their employers. To make Medicare solvent over the next 75 years, the trustees estimate that 6.44% of wages would need to be taxed.
As they did last year, the trustees issued a funding warning in their 2008 report, which they're required to issue when they anticipate that general revenues will have to fund more than 45% of Medicare's total expenditures within the next six years.
Lawmakers won't be able to solve the long-term shortfalls in Medicare until they find a way to reform health care, said Paul Van De Water, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
"Medicare's long-term financing problems are due to the sharp rise in health care costs, not to structural problems particular to Medicare."
And why do I have a stinking suspicion any reforms in health care will benefit the already wealthy insurance companies and leave the people in need of medical care wanting? hmmmm
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huck
Contributor
Posts: 81
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Post by huck on Mar 25, 2008 17:13:34 GMT -6
And why do I have a stinking suspicion any reforms in health care will benefit the already wealthy insurance companies and leave the people in need of medical care wanting? hmmmm Maybe for the same reason that this reminds me of the saying "78% of all statistics are made up on the spot". Its not like this administration has never been shown to make up facts before....
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Post by db on Mar 25, 2008 17:48:44 GMT -6
What do you expect from this gang of supreme traitors; who committed treason, when they appointed, the criminal Bush, president. Until this corporate, criminal nation is cleaned up, starting at the top, things will only get worst. One ignored crime after another, only leads to more and bigger criminality. Sieg Heil! Will the people wake up, when they lose their almighty dollar, or will they accept their Fascist Nation?
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Post by lasher on Mar 26, 2008 2:59:16 GMT -6
The Bush administration has come out with this every year, as part of their campaign to gut Social Security with their privatization scheme. Conservatives don't want the general fund to pay back what it owes the Social Security trust fund, so they dread the impending 2017 start date for that. This is what they are thinking when they say there is a Social Security 'crisis'. But in reality there is no Social Security crisis. The 2041 shortfall is a projection. The anticipated timing of this shortfall usually changes with each year's new calculations. It can be almost totally rectified simply by eliminating the cap on earnings that are subject to payroll taxes. Here, play the Social Security Game and see for yourself: www.actuary.org/socsec.asp
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Post by whoswho on Apr 2, 2008 7:14:24 GMT -6
Well, I have a Federal job, and in our retirement planning benefits overview, it says, "At age 65 enrollment in Medicare is optional if you are not eligible for Social Security (which of course I am, having paid into it all my working years). If enrolled, it (Medicare) becomes your primary and your FEHB plan becomes your secondary provider."
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Post by graybeard on Apr 2, 2008 10:29:31 GMT -6
I don't see a problem with Medicare being primary, having been on it for three years. Just be sure to sign up for it about 3 months before you turn 65. Guess how I know...
GB
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Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 2, 2008 14:57:43 GMT -6
The Medicare program is already taking in less than it has committed to pay out.... This assertion is false. The latest information from the Treasury Dept (from page 30, Tables 8), show that Medicare is still taking in MORE than it is paying out, by +$3.7 trillion for fiscal year 2008 (i.e., the 5 months starting in October 2007 going thru February 2008.) For fiscal year 2007, the "excess" Medicare revenue over outlays was +$22 billion. This information comes from the Treasury Dept's own numbers -- the Dept. that Paulson is the chairman of. Paulson might want to check his own department's numbers before he makes public statements.
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Post by blueneck on Apr 2, 2008 15:50:52 GMT -6
The so called "shortfall" of SS is easily remedied by any one or combination of the following - raise the retirement age (in effect as the dollar devalues and peoples savings and 401ks decline forces people to delay retirement), roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest 2% and/or raise the salary cap
Medicare wouldn't be in "trouble" either if Bush hadn't added his big pharma corporate welfare prescription scheme to it
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