On 6/14/2011 4:38 PM, RD Sandman wrote:
Jeff wrote in
:

On 6/14/2011 4:31 PM, RD Sandman wrote:
Jeff wrote in news:_dGdnRlM7bx-
:

On 6/14/2011 1:25 PM, RD Sandman wrote:
[snip]
Poll: 58 percent want Medicare kept as is.

And, probably 58% of those have no idea how Medicare is paid for.

However, Medicare significantly outperforms private insurance in
controlling the rising cost of health care.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/node/11672

I already read his opinion piece.

Bottom line is that Medicare is projected to rise in cost 77% over
the next decade, Medicaid by 99%.

Medicare is financed from different sources and it supplies cost
coverage to different operations within it. Part A (inpatient
hospital) is covered by the Hospital Insurance Fund (HI). Part B,
(which covers physicians and outpatient care )and Part D
(prescription drug benefits) are paid for by the Supplementary
Medical Insurance Fund (SMI) along with state payments toward the
prescription drug benefit.

On the revenue side for 2010, we had:
Payroll taxes providing $182B
Premiums providing $61B
Taxation of benefits providing $13.8B
Transfers from states for prescription dug benefits providing $4B

For a total of $261B for 2010.

With a total cost of $523B, that means that $262B must come from the
general fund as taxes and premiums only cover about half of the cost
of the program. Having to get $262B from the general fund where
currently about 40 cents of every dollar is borrowed makes some folks
uneasy. When Medicare was started, the premiums and payroll taxes
were to pay for it. They don't.

Yes, the HI fund had a balance last year of $344B but that surplus
has been drawn upon and reduced and soon will be depleted.


And the alternative is what, exactly? Add millions of seniors to the
list of those without coverage to healthcare? The current chaotic
lack of a system is eating up our economy, and some sort of public
financed single payer system is the best likely means of curbing cost
growth and reining in the economic inefficiencies of the current
employer-paid/public paid/do without hybrid disaster we have now.

The Republican voucher proposal is a non-starter. The current
experiment of having some Medicare patients managed by private
insurers has proven to be a fiasco with higher costs and worse results
than Medicare itself achieves. It turns out that Americans really
like Medicare, but having increasingly burdened working Americans to
fund Medicare alone is becoming impossible. Perhaps it is time that
unearned income earners, who usually pay only 15-20% income tax rates
and no Social Security or other taxes on their income, should start
paying as wage earners do, at the same higher rate and with the same
additional taxes levied. That would not only "save" Social Security
and Medicare, it would go very toward erasing the deficit.




Then you should be in favor of a flat tax that taxes *ALL* income no
matter from where derived with only one deduction......federal poverty
level wage for a family of four.



Hell no, we need a more progressive tax system with a lot more high tax
brackets for the highest earners. All flat taxes reward the rich and
penalize the poor. They're inherently unfair to the majority.

People making over 10 million a year should pay 50%. People making 100
million should pay 60%-70%. People making a billion should be paying
90%. That's the only fair way to do it. Start hitting those really rich
people much harder. I mean, if you're going to hit poor people at 25% of
what they make, it's only fair a billionaire pays 90%. I say if you
can't get by on 100 million a year then **** you.

The people who should pay less are those who make from about 70 to 250
thousand a year. They get hit worse than anyone.

Hawke