you know how to save Medicare? its really really easy

Let EVERYONE buy into it, not just the part of the population most likely to use it, but also the part of the population who will not use it very much for many years.

Maybe I'm waaayyyyyy off base here, but I would guess that 20 and 30 year olds use a hell of lot less healthcare and cost a whole hell of a lot less than seniors, so WHY WOULD YOU DENY THEIR PREMIUMS????

This is not fucking rocket science.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

I am sure I had it good too at 100/month. Now what if millions of people had that money going to medicare? People in their 20s and 30s who do not have many health problems???

If it's not, it should be. I paid private insurance since I started working almost 50 years ago now that I really need it the co finds umteen differ reasons why it should not pay my health care costs. Congress and our Prez should be aware of this.

I would gladly pay 50/week and then cancel the 100/week that went to the private insurance company and who knows how much my company was paying to the insurance company in addition to that. Maybe I would still have a job in that case.

While I was young and healthy the compamy I worked for changed insurance regularly to cut cost. Premiums varied very little. When I was ready to retire, got older and now a little sicker the new company ...need I tell you more?

out of their soc sec check, which I have no problem with. If everyone could pay what I pay, no one would complain.

instead of different systems, everyone is in A system and pays into that ONE system. but we have a very powerful and money laden group that would not like that and will fight it tooth and nail. you know who they are. they're the ones that were standing behind obama the other day grinning from ear to ear. they know that THEY will get what they want and we'll get screwed.

The drug program is a huge subsidy to BigPharma and a big part of the total Medicare bill. It is a huge drain on Medicare since we have to pay BigPharma whatever price they say. Drug prices have doubled, trebled and quadrupled under the new drug program. Why shouldn't BigPharma goose up its prices, Medicare is required by law to pay whatever BigPharma wants.

:grr:

the years and it will be solvent forever:

"The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes." (Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090512/ap_on_bi_ge/us_social_security )

So, do you get it? The government has treated Social Security, Medicare and Medicade as a huge, inexhaustible slush fund for decades. The Feds take money out of OUR PAY CHECKS to fund these programs. They then "borrow" the money from the programs to fund their bridges to nowhere and leave a worthless paper IOU in the account, backed by the fed government. Now that the people WHO PUT THE MONEY INTO THE PROGRAMS (ie: We the People) need the money to do WHAT IT WAS PUT THERE TO DO, we're told that the money is gone, and the program will be insolvent in a few years.

The solution: government needs to pay back the bonds, but to do that, they'd need to raise taxes on the wealthy and the corporations who raided the programs to build their pet projects over the years.

The "crisis" in Medicare is not a crisis at all IF the Feds pay back the money they borrowed. Telling all of us who put our money in that bank to fuck off because the trustees of the bank spent it to line their pockets is not acceptable.

:grr:

Clinton-Gore, because of the projected surpluses in the economy, and because they felt it was simply the right thing to do.

Sam