Quote:
Originally Posted by mookiemookie
Funny how it'ts just a billion here, a billion there, a tenth of a percentage point of GDP when it comes to war - but try proposing even a fraction of that being spent on domestic stimulus or healthcare, and all of a sudden it's Tea Party time and tyranny and Nazi Germany and cause to march in the streets with guns slung over your shoulder.
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Over 2/3 of total federal spending is on social programs already.
46% of healthcare in the US was
already delivered with the US government as the payee, and to a large degree this continues to be the problem since medicare and medicaid both reimburse BELOW COST in many cases. As a result, private insurance MUST increase to cover the
negative income.
Adding new entitlements when we cannot afford the ones already on the books is insanity.
My "tea-party" like solution would be to freeze spending at a few % above 2007 for 5-10 years. In addition, I'd phase the retirement age older. Say in 3 years it goes from 65 to 66, in 5 years from 66 to 67, in 7 from 67 to 68 and so forth until it reaches whatever 65 was in terms of life expectancy when SS was first passed or the average lifespan, whichever is lower.
Retirement is not a right, the whole point for pushing retirement was in fact to screw skilled workers in favor of the young.
65 YO workers are at top pay scales, so dump them out of the workplace and hire 2 young guys for the same money—and the 65YO doesn't get counted as "unemployed" which makes the numbers look better. SS should be what it was supposed to be, a safety net. Medicare should also go up the same way.
Medicaid should be a write-off for providers.