I'm getting SICK AND TIRED of people on government checks WHINING about TAXES!

[Joanne98]

Teabaggers over 65 if you care so much about your children and grandchildren why don't you STOP living on SOCIALISM! Better DEAD than RED. Burn your medicare cards assholes!

I'm sick and tired of giving all our money to WAR SOCIALISM! I don't hear them bitching about that!

COPS! How many cops are at the teabag fest? How many teabaggers are collecting disability checks?

We need a TAX HIKE for the rich so they get the message to STOP supporting the racists!

[metapunditedgy]

1. Don't forget CORPORATE socialism.

How many corporations are siphoning off the public coffers and feeding money to their execs?

[spanone]

2. why don't they send back their socialistic social security checks????

[Bonhomme Richard]

3. I got one of those emails about Nancy Pelosi using a 757......

using taxpayers dollars. It is complete crap but the guy who sent it is about 50, has spent his whole career at the government tit and is now retired with government health etc, etc,.....
A complete hypocrite. I didn't call him on it because I didn't want to start a big ruckus among friends but he did get set down over the bullshit email. He won't be sending anything out again without checking scopes first.

[The Magistrate]

4. You And Me Both, Ma'am

[elocs]

5. Problem: senior on SS did pay for years into the system & they do pay for Medicare.

Granted, they will get far more than they ever paid into the system, but they have and are paying. I have a retired freeper friend who informs me that she does not get "free" healthcare but does have to pay each month for it.

[The Magistrate]

6. There Is, Sir, A Nominal Deduction For Medicare

It comes nowhere near supporting the pay-outs of the program. Of course, if she has a supplemental private policy she pays for that.

[elocs]

7. Let's be honest: that "deduction" does mean less money in the SS check each month.

Medicare would only truly be "free" if such deductions are not made from each month's check. Yes, it comes nowhere near to supporting the pay-outs of the program, but her point is that her healthcare is not "free".

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Nominal is an interesting word. But it is not the correct one.

Always look twice when you see a word where a number should be.

Medicare always has premiums, deductibles and co-pays. It also is incomplete so most carry additional coverage, which also costs actual money, each month.
Also, many, many Social Security beneficiaries are also current income tax payers, that duty does not vanish with age nor with disability, just with lack of taxable income.
So those who wish to change minds need to address these realities. Medicare is not free by any measure. It is a better deal than most can get, which is why most should be able to get it. But free? Not even close. Older and disabled people pay income taxes, just as others do. The benefits themselves are taxed.
So it is pretty easy to understand why a person might take issue to being told they get free medical care on the backs of taxpayers, when they are tax payers, and pay for their medical care as well.

[The Magistrate]

12. Her Payment, Sir, Is Ninety To Ninety-Five Dollars A Month

It may go up a little next year. Obviously, without knowing a person's benefit it cannot be calculated on a percentage basis, but the average benefit runs about eleven hundred dollars, making this a charge in the vicinity of nine percent. It is, of course, money never seen, since the insurance is in fact part of the pension structure, so that the payment simply comes in the form of the policy.

[Bluenorthwest]

13. That is true in part

For those at lower income levels. There is a bump higher up. It is also not taking into consideration that for many, that is a 10% hit from the benefit. For many more, it is part of one's taxable income. So it is taxable. It matters not when it is taken, but the percentage for the payer.
Also, as I pointed out, the other policies needed often add hundreds of dollars in premium payments. You just will not win an argument in which you tell a person who pays for something that they get it for free. It is not free. For some it is nominal, for some it is a major expense. Telling them that they do not pay that, well, they might just suggest you tell that to the IRS. Because the IRS taxes it as income. The IRS does not exempt it due to the method the payment is taken. 'Money never seen' means nothing if that money is taxed, as it is, as income.
In addition, there are deductibles, co-pays, and all that rot. It is not free. And to many it is not a nominal charge. For many others, it is a taxable income item. If one is spending enough, the premiums paid can be deducted as part of medical expenses.
And by the way, only Part D is legally allowed to increase premiums more than the COLA increase. This year, no COLA increase at all, so no rise in Medicare part B premiums. Which is the part we speak of. It will not go up next year, no 'may' about it. Staying the same.
The victory sits between God and the devil in the details. Sir.

[Go2Peace]

17. Semantics: All social programs are "Paid into". We have just framed SS as something different

But it is just a social program paid by taxes. It is not a "savings account". I pay money into it that pays for other people who are retired. I do not get that money back, I get other tax money from another generation who helps pay when it is there turn.

I hate FRAMES and inconsistancy in logic. We have been taught to think of it as a non-social(ist) program just like right wingers have been taught that all the programs they use are ok and the ones that others get benefit from are not.

[The Magistrate]

9. If You Are Looking For a Useful Argument, Sir, Tell Her She Is Heavily Subsidized

No more self-sufficient or independent than any other welfare queen sucking off the government teat at the expense of hard-working tax-payers. Tell her you, as a working man, are damned sick and tired of free-loaders like this, who pay in a nickel and take out a dollar bill in 'benefits'. Call her a socialist leech and order her out of your sight, until she pays her own damned way like a real American....

[Bluenorthwest]

15. Working men who take that angle

would be well advised to make dang sure they pay more in income taxes than the retiree they feel they support. She could be paying more, and might have been doing so for a lifetime. Old people pay income tax. So do disabled people.

[The Magistrate]

16. Why, Sir? The Whole Thing Is Simply Bluster

The point is to shock and shame, and make it hard to recall the entire subject without feeling that shock and shame rise to the fore for a long time to come. That tends to produce silence. This is not about convincing people, it is about making them shut up and acquiesce.

One reasons with reasonable people; with un-reasonable people, one employs other methods.

[Critters2]

11. Right. And single payer would be supported in the same way.

No one is talking about free health care. Taxes (which is what medicare and SS deductions are in reality) would support any "government" health care.

They just don't want others to have what they have.

[Deja Q]

10. Those whiners SHOULD have their benefits taken away; what they live on are socialist institutions.

If they don't like it, they needn't be hypocrites.

Unless they're naive - but would explaining the truth to them help?

[bluestateguy]

14. This is not the WWII GI Generation

They were far too civic minded to engage in such nonsense, and they paid much higher taxes in their day.

The over 65 crowd now includes (up to age 84) the so called "Silent Generation" born between 1925 and 1942.

They are on the whole a much more selfish generation.

[Lagomorph]

18. Boy, you're on a roll today.

Too much coffee?