By altara, September 5 at 11:39 am

Well said altara.  That is as clear an explanation as I have ever heard.  Anyone who does not understand this
has been brainwashed by the right.

By Nighthawk, September 4 at 9:37 pm

It is good to hear that your parents are being well taken care of. I am glad they have a pension but I am sure you know that many have never had the good fortune to work for a company that provides one.  We have saved for many years and also lived very frugally and our house has been paid off for years but without generous company benefits we still need our Social Security checks and Medicare.  We would also like to see our granddaughter who works but does not receive benefits be able to afford health care.

It is pretty clear what caused the concerns of most “Medicare” insured. During the early stages of the Health Care debate President Obama had to address the issue of financing his plans. He suggested that some 500 billion dollars (over ten years) might come from “streamlining Medicare”. Ms. Goodman, there is no need to search for hidden motives.

By Hulk2008, September 4 at 11:32 am #

You are quite correct.

By mybagwell, September 4 at 11:57 am #

Well, I’m spending some time taking care of my folks.  Nothing serious (full time), yet. Funny thing is, they don’t need their SS.  The old man has a decent pension and medicare covers what isn’t already covered.  It’s not that they’re well to do.  They’ve been saving forever, lived well below their means, in a house that’s been paid off for decades. 

They are children of the Depression. 

Sorry Purple, The elderly are not all selfish baby boomers.

They are talking to the same ‘Me’ demographic they have always spoken to- except now they are newbie medicare recipients. Let’s not forget the last few decades have been between Tax cuts and ‘entitlement’ program funding.
These are the ‘screw everyone else, Cut my Taxes’ generation which has dominated the poltiical realm for the last few decades- it’s the Boomers.
They Tried to slice & dice Medicare, kill medicaid and put social Security on the casino floor.
Proof of Which chohort group of ‘seniors’ are against healthcare- Listen to what they are NOT asking about. Long Term care coverage. Home health coverage.Interim for new Appliance coverage (hearing aid, dentures,glasses). Reducing incidence of Abuse and neglect in Long term care….These are not their questions or concerns because they are New to being a senior. Their only ‘senior’ issues are covered Doc visits & hospital stays, medications and procedures. They have not reached the age that those things are no longer central to their existence.For Real Seniors It’s, ‘where are they going to live’, ‘who is going to help or care for me and how well’? Even more tell tale it is not your aged Seniors who fear dying, in fact for some they long for the reunion with all those they’ve lost. It’s the Young Seniors who are terrified of death, of leaving all those they love behind.
Calling this gray haried group ‘Seniors’ is a joke- their Aged Yuppies who want everything, at the expense of anyone else, as they always have.

Hulk2008

Sure you have been paying into Social Security but so has everyone else except those who live on investments.
However, those who make over the maximum get a free ride for anything over it. 

I appreciate every penny I get from Social Security and have paid into on 100% of my income for a lifetime.

I remember both my grandmothers who had to live with which ever of their children would tolerate them in the last years of their lives as they had no income.
It was not pleasant for them, not like the Walton’s at all. Their children actually fought over who had to take them and while they were not mistreated they were made to feel they were a burden. 

I did not resent paying for the retired when I was working and I am sure my children had rather I do not have to live with them.  Yes I do have a 401K and an IRA but they have lost so much value I would be in trouble without Social Security.  I find it hard to understand why so many are so averse to sharing some of their good fortune with others.  Maybe there some who are not deserving but most have worked all their lives.  Many are paid so little that there is nothing left over after living expenses to save.  I have been there, too.

To fwdpost:
    If you had contributed 6.2% of your pay to Soc Sec for each of those 50 years (as your employer would also have) and temporarily presume you reached the maximum amount each year (that was $102,000.00 last year if memory serves) and that money had been set aside to the tune fo $12,640.00 per year, you would be correct that there would have been a great deal saved up for you. 
    The problem is that the concept of such a “trust fund” or “lockbox” never was implemented.  There never was a savings rate applied to your accumulations.  The truth is that as a young person you were paying the benefits of the retirees each year during your own earning years - your stash was NOT being saved.  Your stash was not earning 4% or even .015% like current bank rates.  Most of the money was taken out and used for current retirees, wars, disability, and whatever - NOT accumulated. 
  So when current younger people say they are paying your retirement, they are not too far off base.  The stash has been getting depleted when people live longer or more people are disabled or parents die and their minor children need support or an administration launches wars of convenience.  Face it: Social Security is worthwhile; but it is not an investment account and never was intended to be such - it is an intergenerational compact at best.  Retirees have always been expected to do their own savings accounts - and remember when companies actually believed in rewarding their workers with defined benefit pensions ?  (Pension = buggywhip = whale oil lamp) 
  By the bye, I have been kicking into the kitty for the past 48 years in various industries, most of it in software development.

“When exactly did the Republicans start operating one of those marketing scams that target the elderly?”,

Hard to say….. hard to say.  It appears it may have been since 1917 (or at least they’ve been precariously “placed” since then).  It’s always the Republicans….  Another good article @ Newsweek:

“In a 2001 paper entitled “Dying to Save Taxes,” economists from the University of Michigan and the University of British Columbia examined 13 changes in U.S. tax law since 1917 and concluded that benefactors die in greater numbers just before tax hikes and just after tax cuts. A 2006 study done in Australia, which abolished its inheritance tax in July 1979, reached the same conclusion. Statistics showed that more than half the people who would ordinarily have died in the last week of June 1979—and whose heirs would have been subject to the tax—managed to avoid it by surviving into July.  Republicans in Congress have created a similar inducement for Grandma not to die before January 2010, but to make sure she is gone by January 2011.”
http://www.newsweek.com/id/214267?from=rss

Maybe their fears are more real than we thought…. after all, they listen to the REPUBLICANS…. and when you do that, you NEED to fear for your life!

“It was bad enough when Sarah Palin told a bald Facebook lie that there were “death panels” in the plans to reform health care.”

Actually, you should be truly embarrassed.

Democrats, when factually confronted on the “end of life” provisions of the bill at town hall meetings, deflected criticism first by declaring (falsely) that Palin was lying, then by finally admitting that the language was there and vowing to remove it. 

Democrats, by their own duplicity, proved that Sarah was truthful.

Of course, these Democrat lies fall right in line with Democrat lies about the single payer “option”.

An option that is run with The People’s money while taxing and fining employers and individuals that do not maintain coverage approved by the Government will lead to a situation where competing plans cannot compete.

Single payer plan.  Not “option”.

Note that when I use the term “The People’s”, it is in the Constitutional sense, not the Communist sense.  Apologies for confusing the NeoComm Liberals here.

“Have you checked your spiritual development lately? “

Yep.  The Lord has given us Dominion over the world.  Not stewardhip.  Dominion.

The brilliant young generation that never took economics in high school, or civics, is now lecturing seniors that Social Security is an entitlement and we contributed less than we get.
Over a period of FIFTY years I contributed $170,000, plus a similar amount from my employers. At even 4% interest you are talking about more than a million dollars in my phantom trust fund, maybe $2 million. The treasury note interest on the lower amount would be three times what I get from SS. Do a chart yourself if you are so smart.
The rule of thumb is that the low wage earners receive a benefit that represents half their high years wage, and the higher middle class workers receive only 25%. It’s a ripoff, and it is disgusting to hear some moron who works at Burger King blogging that he’s paying my social security.

I would dispute this - based on the behavior of many in this country.

“We are not humans going through a temporary spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings going through a temporary human experience.”

Thanks for mentioning Sara Palin again. Yuh. Her polls just shot up and the
Democrats went down because of your incessant ranting. You need to stop.

And besides, what exactly do you not understand about “managed care”? And no,
doctors ARE the only ones to make these decisions. And if there are mandates to
save money, you can kiss your butt bye,bye at an earlier age.

I think you have put your brain aside for the sake of a cynical, depressed,
hopeless Obama who has lost the American trust.

I am one senior who would not mind giving up some of the great benefits I have with Medicare Advantage so that my granddaughter could afford insurance for herself and her children.  It seems that the opposition to health care reform is rooted in selfishness and greed.  Surely we are better than that.

Just because someone gets old (aka a “senior) doesn’t mean they suddenly become kindly or charitable or filled with wisdom.  U.S. seniors are every bit as greedy and self-centered and closed-minded as young people .... and they tack on the element of age paranoia to boot.  Granny is just as stubborn as ever and would wrestle her own 2-year-old grandchild to the mat for a stick of candy. 
    We constantly hear old-timers claim they have paid their own way into the golden sunset and “deserve” homage, care, and the good life.  The truth is that seniors on average burn up most of their FICA and Medicare tax inputs within a few brief years of retirement - they truly depend on the inputs of younger generations to keep it going.  Social Security and Medicare never were or will be self-supporting programs - people now outlive the basic designs.
  The Republicans now see an opportunity to begin killing off all the entitlement programs using the “death-of-a-thousand-cuts” approach.  Anybody who would make up a death-panel lie with a straight face would cart Granny off to the dumpster in a heartbeat without a qualm.  Politicians were born without consciences ..... what else should one expect?

Let’s see, many points to address here.

When exactly did the Republicans start operating one of those marketing scams that target the elderly?

1980? Ronny Reagan ran on a promise to “protect” Social Security. Now, seniors are turning to Republicans to “protect” their Medicare. I find it very odd that a group of people (elderly), turn to a Party (Republicans), to protect certain entitlements, that that same Party opposed when they were written.

—presumably from the plan to save $500 billion out of a projected growth in its spending. He did not mention that the proposals would also close the “doughnut hole” in prescription drug coverage, provide subsidies to low-income seniors and give the Medicare trust fund five more years of life.

Seniors were led (or should I say misled) to believe (by Republicans) that those cuts were to come from cuts in services. When in fact, those cuts are to come from administrative cuts.

The fear-mongers are also selling the idea that there is something pernicious about a designated panel of experts studying and comparing the effectiveness of treatments.

I think the medical community has this one covered, already.

How many of the elderly politicians who took this item out of the Senate bill have themselves signed a living will? 

Practically everybody that I know, that’s over 55, has a Living Will. Living Wills require the services of an attorney, which costs money. The so-called “Death Panel” provision was just a benefit that would cover those costs. Republicans, very effectively, used fraud and deception to remove a nice little added benefit.

If someone comes selling that as your legacy, Granny, check your caller ID and block that con artist.

Yeah, and don’t answer those emails saying that you won the Nigerian lottery, either.

There are so many of us sharing earth who haven’t
learned to share yet.  Just like a selfish child.
Please keep in mind, “We are not humans going through
a temporary spiritual experience.  We are spiritual
beings going through a temporary human experience.”
Have you checked your spiritual development lately?