Senior benefit costs rise 24% since 2000

[sabra]

Source: USA Today

The cost of government benefits for seniors soared to a record $27,289 per senior in 2007, according to a USA TODAY analysis.

That's a 24% increase above the inflation rate since 2000. Medical costs are the biggest reason. Last year, for the first time, health care and nursing homes cost the government more than Social Security payments for seniors age 65 and older. The average Social Security benefit per senior in 2007 was $13,184.

"We have a health care crisis. We don't have an entitlement crisis," says David Certner, legislative policy director of the AARP, which represents seniors.

He says seniors shouldn't be blamed for the growing cost of government retirement programs.

The federal government spent $952 billion in 2007 on elderly benefits, up from $601 billion in 2000. It's the biggest function of the federal government. States chipped in another $27 billion in 2007, mostly for nursing homes.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-13-seniors_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

[sinkingfeeling]

1. And are the pharmaceutical and insurance companies ever happy!

[Karenina]

2. Wonder why Carlyle bought all those nursing homes...

? :freak: ?

[donkeyotay]

3. "seniors shouldn't be blamed for the growing cost

of retirement programs." The pork in the program is in the corporations and the return they're getting on their bribes - oops, no we don't call it bribery anymore. What we have here is the Enronization of health care. "Last year, for the first time, health care and nursing homes cost the government more than Social Security payments for seniors age 65 and older." Follow the money. Follow the GOP/BFEE crime wave into this very lucrative bidness.

[demigoddess]

4. seniors are being bled dry by corporations just like all other segments of society

They cannot make money off of seniors by selling them furniture or other goods as much as when they were younger and so now they bleed them dry by selling them health care and other 'services'.
Have you seen the ads for reverse mortgages lately? They are nothing but home equity loans that transfer the value of the house to the banks etc. They loan you x amount of dollars and charge you interest on it, The longer you live, or live healthy the more the interest piles up and then you or your heirs have to pay that money even if the value of your house has gone down, which it often does with older people living in it. Repairs and updating does not happen with older people in a home. Usually, especially if you already need money enough to go for a reverse mortgage. Then when you have to move out of your home for a nursing home or such, you have no value left in your home to draw upon. And that is sometimes where most of older people's wealth is by the time they have to move to nursing home.

Just my two cents.