Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid cost $1 trillion in '04

[question everything]

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid cost $1 trillion in '04

California tops list of state recipients

By Stephen Ohlemacher
ASSOCIATED PRESS

December 27, 2005

WASHINGTON – Three growing entitlement programs consumed nearly half of all federal spending in 2004, and budget analysts expect them to make up a bigger share in the future.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid accounted for more than $1 trillion in the 2004 budget year, according to the Consolidated Federal Funds Report being released today by the Census Bureau.

Overall federal spending was $2.2 trillion, an increase of 5 percent from 2003.

(snip)

For years, Washington has been fighting over how to manage the growth of entitlement programs. Analysts believe the fight will continue for years to come. "It's absolutely essential and inevitable we are going to reform those programs," said Rudolph Penner of the Urban Institute, a social issues research organization. "How, is another question. There's very little interest, now."

(snip)

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20051227/news_1n27entitle.html

[Cha]

1. And how much for the Fucking

I-raqi War where WMD WERE NOT FOUND..AND ALL THE KING'S MEN AND WOMEN WERE FOUND TO BE ROYAL LIARS!

[Frances]

2. Ever notice how cuts to middle class programs are "reforms"

while any mention of having the top 1 pay their fair share is called class warfare?

[nashville_brook]

3. as if they are the same sort of budget item as bombers and foreign aid

these programs are operated like trust funds (ss and medicaid). this article makes it sound like the programs are in crisis, in a time of war, when $$ needs to be spent wisely. these monies aren't general funds.

according to US Health and Human Services:

Under the trust fund perspective, Social Security is projected to have reserves that would allow full payment of benefits until 2041, and the average deficit for the next 75 years would equal 14 percent of the program’s income. The Hospital Insurance (HI) portion of Medicare would have sufficient reserves to cover all promised benefits until 2020. Its average 75-year deficit would equal 91 percent of its income. Based on this outlook, the combined shortfall for both programs would appear to be fixable by immediately raising the payroll tax rate from 15.3 percent to 20.31 percent (half coming from employees and half coming from employers) or by an equivalent reduction in expenditures. From the trust fund perspective, the Supplementary Medical Insurance (SMI) part of Medicare (which pays for physician services and soon, prescription drugs) presents no problem since the Treasury’s general fund finances roughly three fourths of its cost (premiums from enrollee covering the remaining portion) and any shortfalls that should arise for any upcoming year.

http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/ss-mcare-trust05/

[Jim Sagle]

4. Or lift the payroll taxable income limit. Then you wouldn't need to raise

the tax rate at all.

[nashville_brook]

5. and, it can come from the employer side

it doesn't have to knick Joe Blow.

[MichiganVote]

6. Interesting. SS was not considered an entitlement prog. at inception

[papau]

12. ? - it was never a welfare program -and "entitlement" is not proper word I

believe.

As first enacted it was an economic recovery program not called Social Security.

It is similiar to the highway trust fund gas tax - a special tax that funds a special need paid for by those that have that need.

[MichiganVote]

19. Right. That's what I'm saying. Another way to frame the debate.

[lovuian]

7. The Iraqi War and the Military Defense Bill is HOW MUCH???

If the Republicans think that we are so much in debt is going to get the Americans to cut their benefits... THEY ARE SO WRONG!!!

[OneBlueSky]

8. defense? . . . not much . . . but OFFENSE? . . .

that's a horse of a different color (as they say in Oz) . . .

[WePurrsevere]

9. Americans have to work & pay in to get SS & Medicare. We continue

to pay get Medicare Part B (almost $90. a month as of Jan '06, a currently $100. deductible & it's an 80/20 split just as most corp insur is) and optionally now the Rx part which costs a min of $22. per month unless you're "poor" & has a $250 deductible. SS and Medicare are actually insurance programs and not the same as Medicaid or even SSI which is income based assistance for the nations poor.

Since DUers are a rather intelligent and well informed bunch the above may already be known by some here but as someone who had received PA, Medicaid and SSI in the past (as a then financially struggling divorced mom of two) became disabled as an adult and won the right (and it can be quite the fight for some and at times) to receive SS and Medicare I have found over the years that sadly many folks don't understand and/or confuse/blur the two systems a bit (as well as think of SS & Medicare as only for Seniors).

One of the many things that ticks me off to no end is how folks who need a hand UP are so often painted by ignorant and prejudiced RW twits as "lazy", leaches on society, etc when the facts are that what SS, Medicare and even Medicaid costs taxpayers is a drop in the bucket compared to all the corporate welfare, money wasted on gov red tape stupidity, "pork" such as "bridges to no where", and BushCo's LIES and gross incompetence. At least with the insurance programs SS and Medicare you have a chance of getting some of it back as monthly benefits if you live long enough and/or become disabled (and the gov doesn't continue to try and "fix" it to death).

(edited for spelling/typo)

[fasttense]

10. Since when is SS and entitlement program?

I pay my freaking SS. So why is SS now considered an entitlement programs? What happened to all the money they took out of my pay check for the last twenty-five years?

I bet if I had invested that money, and taken the profits, no one would be calling it an entitlement program. If I had bought an insurance policy, and applied for the insurance, no one would be calling it an entitlement program. But because the government now decides it doesn't want to pay me back, all of a sudden, it has become an entitlement program. Bunch of lying, cheating scoundrels want to use the money I paid in to line their fat bulging, repuke pockets.

I want my money back. Just give me what I put in, plus all the interest you kept, and I'll call it even. The government sure as hell is not entitled to my money.

[WePurrsevere]

11. Agreed, it is most assuredly NOT an "entitlement program". That's "spin"..

and total bull puckey. It truly is basically a type of INSURANCE program in that some folks pay in and get lots back... some pay in and get little or nothing for various reasons such as there's little that can be done for what's wrong with them, they die before collecting, etc. The gov should totally keep it's hands (and noses) OUT of "fixing" SS... especially considering it's not truly all that broken but will be if the RePIGliCONs get their way. :grr:

[raccoon]

13. Right on, to that and your previous post.

"Three growing entitlement programs..."

The MSM hoes on the job, as usual.

[donkeyotay]

17. What happened to all that money they took out of your paycheck?

The money that St. Reagan and Alan Greenspan said they needed to take to build up a surplus so that the fund would be solvent when the baby boomers retired? Well, Mr. "it's your money" Bush stole it and gave it to the corporate crooks that have funded the privatization of our democracy.

They steal from working people and then whine about working people not saving for their retirement while their corporate donors also steal their employee's pensions and GOP bankers drain pension funds. Then the media toadies blame you for wanting an "entitlement" and for begging on the street while they're trying to enjoy prosperity. They're all just a bunch of effin crooks.

[area51]

22. What fasttense said. (n/t)

[wishlist]

14. Social Security is running a healthy surplus, shouldn't count in budget

If it weren't for the surplus funds Social Security taxes bring in each year that are borrowed to fund other spending, the entire budget would be in a much worse deficit.

[SOS]

15. Yes

Social Security is off budget and funded separately. It currently takes in more than it sends out.
Individual income taxes amount to $966 billion.
The Pentagon consumes $550 billion and interest on the national debt consumes another $425 billion = $975 billion.
100% of all individual income tax collected covers only the Pentagon and financing the debt. The rest is borrowed, adding to the debt and future interest payments.
But it is spun to look like it's all going to "entitlements".

[Wordie]

16. A totally misleading article. That $3T is PAID for through FICA taxes.

A person only is able to collect based on the amount they have already paid into the system. To say it is an "entitlement" is nonsense. It is an insurance program. That $3T comes out of the pot of amounts already paid by participants in the system, not general tax revenues.

[Toots]

18. And we pay half of that just on the Interest on our National Debt.

:shrug: Imagine if we were Debt Free......Clinton had us headed in that direction but then along came Republican rule.....Pretty soon we will be paying more on Interest than on all the Programs listed. Won't take too many increases in the Prime Rate...

[bemildred]

20. They "cost" nothing.

It's our money, we can spend it on ourselves if we like.

[EFerrari]

24. Louder! Please!

:thumbsup:

[lovuian]

21. If we had Socialized Medicine we could control cost and

Medicaid and Medicare would be under that which WE CONTROLLED PRICES instead of Pharmaceuticals Equipment companies and Insurance co...

I'm waiting for Healthcare to eat up 50 % of the GDP in this nation...

[truthisfreedom]

23. obviously Stephen Ohlemacher is a shill and a right-wing plant. he's not

a reporter... he's a propagandist.

[TheBaldyMan]

25. yipes! maybe Bushco will increase taxes on rich people? n/t