wrote in message
...
On Tue, 9 Feb 2010 10:08:51 -0800, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 8 Feb 2010 23:13:57 -0800, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


There just are not enough young people out there to support the number
of old people we have, even if they did get good jobs

There are, depending on how it's structured, how much costs can be
reduced,
and possibly a change in benefits.


You really think 2.1 kids for each SS recipient is "enough"? My SS
check will be $1946 a month when I plan on taking it in 2012 (age 66).
That means each one of those 2.1 kids will be paying $11,120 a year
just for my SS check and that doesn't cover my Medicare ... assuming
SSA doesn't have any overhead. $15,000-$18,000 a year is a better
number when you look at overhead, SSI and other things SSA will have
to fund out of that FICA tax.


It is simple demographics. 2.1 workers per retiree can not sustain the
same benefit package the greatest generation extracted from short
sighted politicians when it was 18 workers per retiree.

Yet, that's exactly what Obama is trying to do... look at the long term.
He's being vilified for that on a daily basis.

Agreed, and so has every other politician who tries to touch the third
rail.

The "third rail" is typically Social Security.
Yes, that is what we are talking about but the Obama and the Senate
also found out you get a lot of mail when you say you are taking money
out of Medicare.



Barry Goldwater warned us about this problem in 1964, when we might
have been able to actually do something about it but we denied there
was a problem and continued to kick the can down the road for another
46 years even adding to the problem with new entitlements. My kids
have a better chance of seeing a unicorn than they do of seeing a
social security check. The only question is whether the US as we know
it will still be here.

Well Sen. Goldwater had other problems... 1964 was a long time ago, and
he
warned us about a lot of things.

Yes he warned us about a lot of things, most of which were right.

Like what? He changed his views on several things.

Social Security, Vietnam, Cuba, all consuming government.

One quote you should like from later in his life
"I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."



The fix for Social Security really had to happen a long time ago.

Completely untrue. It's an ongoing problem and solution set.

How do you figure that? If we had made substantial changes 2 or 3
decades ago, it wouldn't be going broke before the end of this one.
The only solution now is that ~$16,000 per worker tax I pointed out
above. I know your knee jerk reaction is to just tax the rich people
more but there are not that many rich people. The government owes
Social Security over $2 trillion dollars and even if they had it to
give, they program is still broke in 2043. Unfortunately we don't have
the $2 trillion to give so it is really going to be in trouble in 2016
according to the trust fund report from SSA.


Of course the government/tax payer was going to pay. This will start
out as a modest health plan and then become the same boondoggle
Medicare has become, over budget, deficit spending with a 15-20% fraud
rate.
We will never agree to the taxes necessary to support "free" health
care.
Nobody has ever proven to anyone who actually looks that this will be
cheap.

According to you. And, you're wrong.

Facts ma'am, give me some facts. If they are not cutting the cost of
care itself, it won't be cheaper and the plan is adding 40 million
people, most of which probably won't be able to pay a fraction of
their bill. We all will have to make up that difference.
The CBO report on the Senate bill said costs would go up for those who
have insurance now. That was pretty definitive for me.


Personally I don't want that kind of care but I am not the usual
person. If I ever got that sick I would just want out.

It's called a living will. But, according to those on the right, that a
death panel decision not an individual decision.

The death panel is simply the people who decide whether a person
without a living will gets extraordinary measures in the last few days
of their life. I am for death panels.
Personally I will just want the nitrous oxide, hold the oxygen.
(the dentist's preferred form of punching out)

Right now, the rich live, the poorer die.

I ran those numbers for you all here a while ago and people without
insurance die at about the same rate as people who have insurance.
(using the "lack of insurance kills 43,000 people a year" factoid and
"41 million don't have insurance" as a starting point). The difference
is a few percent and other factors like crime, lifestyle and living
conditions will easily cover that difference.
Run those numbers against national death rates yourself and see.

If you are saying poor people live in more dangerous neighborhoods,
have a higher illegal drug use rate and have more dangerous
lifestyles/jobs, I agree but giving them insurance won't really change
that much.


I'm sorry, but you seem to have all the answers, most of which appear to be
either made up or twist and turn like a winding road in the mountains. It's
just not worth it. On the one had you claim that jobs is the answer, and on
the other you claim the debt is going to destroy us. Debt in a recession is
a good thing. It's not even out of bounds... about the same as the "decades"
ago you claim... about the same % of GDP as in the 70s.

If you want to believe people don't die for lack of insurance, go for it. If
you want to believe that Obama is somehow at fault and he's incompetent,
that's fine with me. If you want to believe that Goldwater was some kind of
prescient god, that's fine. None of these things actually turn into facts,
however.

--
Nom=de=Plume