Modest adjustments now will make the system solvent for decades.Exactly right. This is one thing that only the federal government can do and it does it very, very well.

For someone that wants to "keep you honest", you sure know how to blow a lot of hot air with nothing to substantiate what you are disputing. Not even Rush is that bad. At least he has some stupid and untrue dispute. Maybe that explains why he is at least successful in what he does and you are not.

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01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

'GM has been doing that too if you don't count the bailouts.

So let them starve. Let them be an example to the younger generation as to what happens when you don't take care of yourselves. If you kid doesn't want to stop sucking on Mama's Tit, what do you do? At the rip old age of 55, he still will be sucking on Mama and crapping in diapers.

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

That makes it MUCH more difficult to solve than a political problem. Giving goodies is easy. It also wins votes, BTW. Taking it is hard and loses votes. So, what makes you think it is that easy?

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Yeah, right. When your worker pool shrinks by 10, a minor change is needed. Let me cut your household income by a factor of 10 and you tell me that.

Now I see how you come about with that statement. You compare apples with oranges. Care to explain why if the govt can do something so well, we have this huge debt? Care to explain why they have so many cost overruns? Take that into consideration when you consider this. Remember Fannie and Freddie? They were wonderful till they needed to be bailed out. Consider that the govt has been able to do accounting tricks that nobody has been legally allowed to do and it still cannot balance it's checkbook. Now tell me, do you really think it can do what you think?

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Exactly.

SS full retirement age needs...and will eventually go out to 70. Early at 62 needs to go to 65 now.

Then we need to adress the govt and public employee retirement systems.

Start with the military and other retirement programs that have 20 & out at 50% and health care, etc for life with cola etc. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not anti-military. Far from it. But think about it.
A teen enlists out of high school, pulls 20 yrs and "retires" at 38. Then he draws retirement pay & life time benefits for the rest of his life.....another 40 years. That's unsustainable. So too are public employee pensions where you gin up your last year or 3's income and retire as a Port Authority transit cop with a lifetime pension of 100,000k, plus, plus, plus. I know a guy that's doing it.
An accumulating unlimited sick days and then get a going away check of hundreds of thousands of dollars.. Ridiculous. Use it or lose it must be the public sector rule. Who made govt employees the priveledged class???
Show of hands: How many of you have a private sector retirement plan with cost of living increases? Anyone?

BTW... This SS discussion is ironic, given how the French are rioting over being forced to delay retirement to 62! Sacre Bleu!! Tel misere!! Oh the pain and misery.
...and given how Britian plans to cut govt spending..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/video/2010/oct/20/spending-review-george-osborne-video

You and Craig want to tell AARP that? And while you are at it, do tell them to vote for you. Let me know how that works out with your political career. It is much easier to give it than to tell someone that they have to wait.

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Hey, I finally gave up and joined AARP this year.
(I'd like to have their printing contract)

I am hopeful but not optomistic that something akin to the 90's welfare reform move will surface to restore sanity to other government doles and public retirement program lunacy.

That is why I am against these programs. First off, they create a class of dependents and the next generation and the generation after that. It gives someone an "out" if they are lazy and stupid. Next, it will be VERY difficult to cut back on the bennies. You know that as well as I.

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

Tax cuts are goodies to........

Retiring late works if your jobs physical requirement is that you can lift a pencil.

Yes they are. What's your point? They should only be given out if we find that they have taken out more than they need.

Planning for your retirement is better. My adopted parents are not by any means bright. Blue collar workers that planned for their retirement. BARELY passed high school so if they can, why can't others? If you cannot and/or will not, maybe you will be a better example to others as to what can happen when you cannot and/or will not plan for your future.

I believe that you have to take the good with the bad. If you work hard and are successful, you should keep the fruits of your labor. OTOH, if you are lazy and stupid, you should reap the punishments of it.

__________________
01 Ford Excursion Powerstroke
99 E300 Turbodiesel
91 Vette with 383 motor
05 Polaris Sportsman 800 EFI
06 Polaris Sportsman 500 EFI
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Red
03 SeaDoo GTX SC Yellow
04 Tailgator 21 ft Toy Hauler
11 Harley Davidson 883 SuperLow

ObamaCare's Incentive to Drop Insurance

My state of Tennessee could reduce costs by over $146 million using the legislated mechanics of health reform to transfer coverage to the federal government.

By PHILIP BREDESEN

One of the principles of game theory is that you should view the game through your opponent's eyes, not just your own.

This past spring, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (President Obama's health reform) created a system of extensive federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance through new organizations called "exchanges." The details of these subsidies were painstakingly worked out by members of my own political party to reflect their values: They decided who was to benefit from the subsidies and what was to be purchased with them. They paid a lot of attention to their own strategies, but what I believe they failed to consider properly were the possible strategies of others.

Our federal deficit is already at unsustainable levels, and most Americans understand that we can ill afford another entitlement program that adds substantially to it. But our recent health reform has created a situation where there are strong economic incentives for employers to drop health coverage altogether. The consequence will be to drive many more people than projected—and with them, much greater cost—into the reform's federally subsidized system. This will happen because the subsidies that become available to people purchasing insurance through exchanges are extraordinarily attractive.

In 2014, when these exchanges come into operation, a typical family of four with an annual income of $90,000 and a 45-year-old policy holder qualifies for a federal subsidy of 40% of their health-insurance cost. For that same family with an income of $50,000 (close to the median family income in America), the subsidy is 76% of the cost.

One implication of the magnitude of these subsidies seems clear: For a person starting a business in 2014, it will be logical and responsible simply to plan from the outset never to offer health benefits. Employees, thanks to the exchanges, can easily purchase excellent, fairly priced insurance, without pre-existing condition limitations, through the exchanges. As it grows, the business can avoid a great deal of cost because the federal government will now pay much of what the business would have incurred for its share of health insurance. The small business tax credits included in health reform are limited and short-term, and the eventual penalty for not providing coverage, of $2,000 per employee, is still far less than the cost of insurance it replaces.

For an entrepreneur wanting a lean, employee-oriented company, it's a natural position to take: "We don't provide company housing, we don't provide company cars, we don't provide company insurance. Our approach is to put your compensation in your paycheck and let you decide how to spend it." But while health reform may alter the landscape for small business in unexpected ways, it also opens the door to what is a potentially far larger effect on the Treasury.

The authors of health reform primarily targeted the uninsured and those now buying expensive individual policies. But there's a very large third group that can also enter and that may have been grossly underestimated: the 170 million Americans who currently have employer-sponsored group insurance. Because of the magnitude of the new subsidies created by Congress, the economics become compelling for many employers to simply drop coverage and help their employees obtain replacement coverage through an exchange.

Let's do a thought experiment. We'll use my own state of Tennessee and our state employees for our data. The year is 2014 and the Affordable Care Act is now in full operation. We're a large employer, with about 40,000 direct employees who participate in our health plan. In our thought experiment, let's exit the health-benefits business this year and help our employees use an exchange to purchase their own.

First of all, we need to keep our employees financially whole. With our current plan, they contribute 20% of the total cost of their health insurance, and that contribution in 2014 will total about $86 million. If all these employees now buy their insurance through an exchange, that personal share will increase by another $38 million. We'll adjust our employees' compensation in some rough fashion so that no employee is paying more for insurance as a result of our action. Taking into account the new taxes that would be incurred, the change in employee eligibility for subsidies, and allowing for inefficiency in how we distribute this new compensation, we'll triple our budget for this to $114 million.

Now that we've protected our employees, we'll also have to pay a federal penalty of $2,000 for each employee because we no longer offer health insurance; that's another $86 million. The total state cost is now about $200 million.

But if we keep our existing insurance plan, our cost will be $346 million. We can reduce our annual costs by over $146 million using the legislated mechanics of health reform to transfer them to the federal government.

That's just for our core employees. We also have 30,000 retirees under the age of 65, 128,000 employees in our local school systems, and 110,000 employees in local government, all of which presents strategies even more economically attractive than the thought experiment we just performed. Local governments will find eliminating all coverage particularly attractive, as many of them are small and will thus incur minor or no penalties; many have health plans that will not meet the minimum benefit threshold, and so they'll see a substantial and unavoidable increase in cost if they continue providing benefits under the new federal rules.


Our thought experiment shows how the economics of dropping existing coverage is about to become very attractive to many employers, both public and private. By 2014, there will be a mini-industry of consultants knocking on employers' doors to explain the new opportunity. And in the years after 2014, the economics just keep getting better.

The consequence of these generous subsidies will be that America's health reform may well drive many more people than projected out of employer-sponsored insurance and into the heavily subsidized federal system. Perhaps this is a miscalculation by the Congress, perhaps not. One principle of game theory is to think like your opponent; another is that there's always a larger game.

Mr. Bredesen, a Democrat, is the governor of Tennessee and the author of "Fresh Medicine: How to Fix Reform and Build a Sustainable Health Care System," just out by Atlantic Monthly Press.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304510704575562643804015252.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h

Maybe I missed it but were the increases in cost of health insurance in the year 2014 , without the Healthcare reform bill taken into consideration?