Obama is planning on including "entitlement reform" in his proposal for a balanced budget.
The best idea would be to roll the VA and Medicare into a universal single-payer system, but Republicans in Congress would never vote for it.
The reason that we seniors need our own close-to-free (and Medicare does not cover many health care needs of seniors -- like hearing aids, which are very expensive, dental care, and other things plus we pay co-pays that add up because of the frequency of our visits to the doctor, many of which are not our idea), health care coverage is that we would have to be in the top 1% to be able to avoid the health care we need -- even the basic health care we need.
Those of us who live long enough to make it to 65 and older are like cars that functioned beautifully with just an oil change or a wheel balancing here and there when we were just a few years old but now need new transmissions and brake systems and even in certain cases a new engine.
We are older. Statistically, on the average, our likelihood of having a very expensive health crisis is far greater than it was when we were in our teens or twenties. That's why wise leaders invented Medicare.
We are not good risks. Insurance companies would refuse to take most of us on. We have too many pre-existing conditions, and the insurance companies calculate risks very carefully. I know this because I bought my own insurance in my early 60s. I was relatively healthy, but, in California, where the insurance laws pretty much mean you will get some sort of insurance, however expensive, I was considered high risk due to tiny little "pre-existing conditions" that you would laugh at. I was shocked.
The VA exists because, like the elderly, veterans, especially those who serve in battle, have a high incidence of difficult medical problems, often due to their military experience. If you did not pay for Medicare taxes out of your paycheck, the portion of that check you would have to pay for insurance for yourself and your family would be much higher. The money to cover your elderly neighbor's kidney dialysis -- the care that keeps him alive for his grandchildren -- would be paid for in part out of your monthly insurance premium. Fewer Americans would buy health insurance. And in the many, expensive health crises young Americans would face, they would call on the government to help them. So, to protect the private health insurance system from inevitable bankruptcy, we have Medicare. The money for the health care of the elderly has to come from somewhere. You may not like paying for Medicare, but if your mother was dying from a curable condition simply because you couldn't afford to pay for her treatments, you would scream for government assistance. Or at least most young Americans would. Hence, Medicare.
As for Social Security -- it is a) a way to get older people out of the work force so that younger, generally stronger and more desired workers, can get jobs, and b) a cooperative way that permits each working person to provide for him- or herself in the senior years.
Social Security benefits are earned by paying into the system during your working life. They are not a gift. They are not charity. I got my card when I was 14 as did others my age. When I worked, I paid into the system -- always. People who do not pay into the system are not eligible for Social Security benefits. The cap on Social Security taxes needs to be raised. There would be no threat of a lack of funds for Social Security if we simply did that.
Our government solemnly promised us all of our working lives that if we paid into the system it would manage the Social Security Trust so that the money for us would be there when we retired. Republican presidents and Democratic presidents, Republican Congresses and Democratic Congresses all made this vow to us -- with no exceptions until George W. Bush under the influence of Pete Peterson and a greedy crew on a soon-to-be-bankrupt Wall Street.
In fact, Reagan revamped the Social Security system to require us to pay in a higher percentage of our income than before assuring us and the baby boomers that if we just paid more, we would be able to count on having the Social Security benefits we would need when we reached retirement age.
All the while, we and our younger baby boomer brothers and sisters maintained our parents in style. We worked and paid the money in. They not only received good Social Security benefits but, as union-paid workers, also received in many cases, good employer pensions. I would bet that not a one of us regrets having taken good care of our parents.
Clinton and Gore talked about putting Social Security in a lock box, but it didn't happen.
And then came George W. Bush and Pete Peterson with his anti-Social Security rants. Peterson has put his money where his mouth is and become the anti-Social Security spokesperson. George W. Bush smashed the idea of a lock box and started giving the money away -- to defense contractors, to avenge his father, to fulfill his I'm-a-hero-because-I-won-in-Iraq fantasies, to curry favor with his dad's friends in the oil business and to demonstrate his generosity to other 1%ers in the upper tax brackets. He sold out seniors.
Now comes Obama. Appoints Timothy Geithner be the Treasury Dept. head. Geithner - a Pete Peterson protege who owed his appointment to the N.Y. Fed to a committee headed by Pete Peterson. The rest is history -- or about to be.
It's a typical Obama twist and turn. On the same weekend that he affirms in his Inauguration Speech that he supports Social Security and Medicare -- the twist to the left -- his spokesman, Plouffe, announces to those alert enough to watch the talk shows -- the turn to the right -- that he plans "entitlement reform."
And so, where are we? We have two departments, Defense and Homeland Security, that cannot be audited by the GAO because they cannot keep good records, and we have Social Security, that can be audited (apparently, by elimination) but for which Congress refuses to pay the bills.
Homeland Security and Defense need to fess up to what they did and do with the money they claim they can't account for, and seniors need to be paid what they were assured would be there and have been paying their parents. (The Reagan administration assured us that if we only paid in higher taxes, the money would be saved for us. That was a promise regardless of what the Supreme Court says. That was a promise for which we performed actions. It's as close to a contractual obligation as you get with our government. How does that differ from a defense contract? Reagan said: Pay in more and you will be cared for as you are now caring for your parents. We paid in. It was a deal.)
And while I am at it, may I remind you of the pallets of cash that were shipped to Iraq and, admittedly, LOST.
May I remind you that the Secretary of Treasury is specifically, by statute, charged with safeguarding Social Security's Trust Fund -- and Obama placed Geithner, who is very suspect with regard to his commitment to Social Security, in charge of the Treasury.
There is a serious problem here.
The worst of it is that Obama, who now plans to cut Social Security benefits gave a "vacation" to those now paying into the system which reduced the amount of money flowing into the Social Security Trust Fund until the most recent deal between the White House and Congress. This, of all of Obama's actions, most proves his lack of commitment to Social Security and Medicare. Obama and the current Congress simply do not value seniors to the extent that Americans of generations since Roosevelt have. This is a very sad fact that reflects the deterioration of social and moral values in our nation.
This comes at a time in which it is tougher than ever since the 1930s for people in their 50s to get and keep jobs. This comes following a national financial crisis brought on by the greed and folly of Wall Street, the very wealthy and the mortgage industry which has devastated American families. This failure to fulfill the commitment to seniors comes at a time when middle-class young people face bigger student loan burdens and a tougher job market than in a long time. And the deficits in Social Security and Medicare benefit payments will eventually fall hardest upon the children of the elderly.
A nation that double-crosses its seniors, its grandparents, is in deeper trouble than just a financial crisis. It is in a moral crisis. If the constant, unending wars, the impersonal, materialistic killing-by-drones, the excessive secrecy that hides the shame and lack of honor of our military brass and the gun mania don't prove that, cutting the financial foundation out from under grandma and grandpa certainly does.
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