Bachus discusses Social Security, health care

[notesdev]

Source: Tuscaloosa News

TUSCALOOSA | “Social Security could face a deficit within two years,” U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus predicted here Tuesday. “The situation is much worse than people realize, especially because of the problems brought on by the recession, near depression.

“That’s not been on the board — people don’t seem to know that,” Bachus, the ranking member of the House Committee on Financial Services, said in a wide-ranging interview with the Tuscaloosa News Editorial Board. “What this recession has done to Social Security is pretty alarming.

“We’ve known for 15 years that we were going to have to make adjustment to Social Security, but we still through that was seven or eight years down the road,” he said. “But if things don’t improve very quickly, we’re going to be dealing with that problem before we know it.”

The solvency of Social Security, which provides pensions for people over 65, has not played a major role in the current debate over health care in Congress and Bachus, a Vestavia Hills Republican who represents part of Tuscaloosa County, said it will not likely be addressed in any health care bill the House eventually passes, although if a Social Security bail out is needed, it will invariably impact government health care programs.


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http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090818/NEWS/908189977/1007?Title=Bachus-discusses-Social-Security-health-care

Read more: http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20090818/NEWS/908189977/1007?Title=Bachus-discusses-Social-Security-health-care

[Demeter]

1. This Man Should Retire and STFU

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. Just the word "Baucus" causes all my synapses to shut down

Same thing with "Palin" or "Coulter" or any number of other names. There are some people whom I just have zip interest in.

[pattmarty]

3. Is this guy a fucking Republican spy????????

It's really an easy mechanical fix (I didn't say POLITICALLY easy). Raise the cap on income to 150K or so and it is magically fixed for another 75 yrs or so.

[tomm2thumbs]

4. sounds like a great argument for single payer - since a third of $$ goes to Insurance overhead

Thanks Bachus - have another glass of wine and tell us some more

[zoff]

6. Absolutely!

Plus premiums ala medicare from the additional healthy pool can help prop up the program in terms of income and lower expenses per capita.

[OHdem10]

5. Tell Congress to stop raiding SS to pay for Wars and Every other

shortfall. "Borrowing" from SS is a sick practice and both
parties do it. However, the Republicans do it most. If there
is no money in SSFund, they can end it.

Tell Bsucus he cannot seem to get Healthcare and Medicare
straightened out (willing to give away the store) so how
can we ever trust him with SS???

It is beginning to appear he has played a stall game with
the end result--no Health Care Reform.

[zoff]

7. Repugs dont seem to see war as a cost.

It's war at any cost for these hawks. But they aren't willing to fight for what the average American needs. They refuse to talk about the upside of reducing healthcare expenses as it pertains to gdp.

[Mnpaul]

10. They aren't just raiding SS

They are also raiding the interest paid on money borrowed from SS. Interest on the national debt was 460 billion and they only paid 250. They are only paying the interest on the debt to parties outside of the government.

[glinda]

8. Health Reform in the truest sense will help people. This Country needs a serious make-over.

[JDPriestly]

9. The demographic bubble is the elephant in the room.

Health care reform with a public option (and probably eventually single payer coverage) is not a choice. It is a necessity.

The only way to distribute the cost of medical care and retirement for baby boomers is to get a larger pool of premium payers into the pot. Everyone has to pay their share, and the very wealthy have to pay the cost for the very poor. The rich have a choice: pay for the poor or live in a country in which the streets -- including the street in front of your gated community -- are lined with beggars. And in this country, most of those beggars would be aged over 65.

Baby boomers paid their share. GWB handed most of their contribution over to Halliburton and the Cheney family via Iraq.

[notesdev]

11. Disagree on boomers

If you look at the growth of debt - public and private - over the course of the boomers' stewardship over the nation, the numbers show that not only did they not pay their share, they stole the share of at least two generations after them.

Before the boomers got into power, children were not born into the inheritance of national debt. After they got done, every child born in this country inherits $30,000+ in debt (a number which is growing parabolically as we speak).

Before boomers, the US was a net exporter. Now we are the world's largest importer by a margin so vast it isn't even close.

If boomers think that successive generations are going to willingly subsidize them further, they have a very rude awakening coming.

[Javaman]

12. The talking ass farts again. nt