How Many People Will Die if We Raise the Medicare Age to 67?

[HiPointDem]

In September, 2009, Rep. Alan Grayson got on the floor of the House of Representatives and said that the Republican health care plan – leaving 44 million uninsured – was killing people. It was a famous speech, in which he said that the Republican health care plan consists of two steps. One, don’t get sick. Two, if you do get sick, die quickly. This speech threw the political world into a temporary tizzy, because Grayson actually made the point that health care is about living and dying, not making charts look nicer. The speech, while rhetorically zesty, was data-driven. It relied on this study from Harvard Medical School researchers showing that the death rate for those who are uninsured is 40% higher than those who have insurance (controlling for socioeconomic factors)...

Remember, this isn’t a story of heartbreak and sadness. It’s a story of murder by policy. Medicare isn’t a welfare system where people are getting charity from the state, it’s a social insurance system that these people have already paid for. Increasing the eligibility age for Medicare isn’t shared sacrifice is simply confiscating the property that people prepaid for and that they need to stay alive. Morally, it’s no different than choosing 1261 people aged 65 and 66, disproportionately picking more black and/or poor people, and killing them so that you don’t have to honor the promise they paid for that they would get health care at 65.

Next time you hear someone talk about the need to “reform entitlements” and raising the retirement age, just remember what these words actually mean.

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/how-many-people-will-die-if-we-raise-the-medicare-age-to-67.html#OMTSkiTQFTIRomdI.99

[patrice]

1. Sounds like a good question for a phone call to your senators. nt

[dkf]

2. Then you've got to make it affordable. Raising the age is just the easiest way to do it.

The rest involves changing the way services are delivered to make sure limited funds are spent wisely.

Instead of protesting change, embrace change that moves Medicare to a sustainable path that possibly covers more people. But arguing to keep it as is is not realistic

[jtuck004]

4. Not the easiest for those who die. Or are you advocating fast killing drugs? n/t

[dkf]

5. It's the easiest to do because a monkey can white out 65 and put 67.

But it can't put together rules and regulations to restructure doctor reimbursements and the way everyone is compensated

[jtuck004]

6. But it would be millionaires, whiting out 1265 people, probably before lunch. Not monkees.

Which means it's a choice. By dirty, low-down, stinking cowards who won't stand up for people they represent, unless it's to get another donation for their campaign. They have money from that. They had enough money to support bankers and other thieving bastards for years. They have enough to take and lose pallets of it in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have enough to have just spent over $2 billion dollars on a presidential campaign.

It appears they have enough when they need some for their pocket or some other millionaire.

But when it's some old woman who was never paid enough at the 10 shitty jobs she had over the years, paying taxes so these pathetic excuses for a human can have a job, is it just time for her to get screwed again? The janitor guy that cleaned the shit from their toilets for minimum wage for a few years, 'till his wife died of cancer and he couldn't make work for a couple of days and they fired him? The woman I read about who didn't have enough money to keep her electric on, so she tried to burn newspapers in her oven to keep warm and burned herself so badly she died.

Oh yeah, and at least one absolutely worthless war where we are making no progress but killing people who just went over there to do their duty. Have enough for that, (well, until they come home and need medical care - should they just issue them white out when they are deployed?).

NOW we don't have enough money?

Damn right it's hard. but it's been hard for these working Americans for 50 years, who have callouses on their fingers older than some of these little bastards making blithe pronouncements about how we suddenly don't have enough.

So maybe the millionaires ought to get off their ass and use their brains they think makes them so wealthy and find a damn answer?

Or maybe they need to be whited out...

[dkf]

7. What does a random person with a million dollars have to do with any of those people?

You have the same obligation as they do. It's amazing how the middle class exempts themselves from it all.

Everything is the millionaire's fault because they made a million dollars somehow.

A typical government pension with health benefits is worth a million dollars at least. Yet no one gets on their asses for all the ills of the world.

[jtuck004]

8. I'm not elected and choose to represent the greedy, so no, you are wrong.

My obligations and theirs are very different.

[dkf]

9. Oh your "millionaires" are our senators and reps....

They've over promised what they can deliver. We've all been sold a lie.

[jtuck004]

11. Sort of. But they are choosing to MAKE it a lie. Today. I remember some guy that was

president said "“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people”.

I swear, some of these people seem downright prophetic.

But for purposes of discussion, lets say it is as simple x amt of taxes coming in and x amount of money being invested.

Again, just for discussion, let's assume there was a point in time, years ago, where we began to spend more than we take in, and somehow we live in a world not based on fiat, that is, manageable/manipulable/easier to create out of air than gold, currency.

Some time back these politicians making the decisions could have said we haven't got enough, we need to cut back. But they didn't, kept going with phony, expensive wars with no freedom won for much of anyone (the only really good reason for one, eh?), trillions upon trillions paid to people for their fraudulent business schemes and profiteering bubbles, payments to foreign nations for nearly anything, trillions upon trillion in corporate subsidies. All this in a nation where unemployment and food stamps and the number of working poor and those in poverty are deliberately allowed to increase for 4 years of a Democratic Presidency by making the choice to prop up instead, and CONTINUE to prop up, banks and many that are simply three decker saurkraut and toadstool sandwichs with arsenic sauce like Mi$4 RobMe, Sheldon Adelson, the Koch brothers, Jamie Dimon, most anyone in a the big private equity junk firms and some others that keep their big yaps shut. That is, people who take an inordinate amount of resources to themselves leaving tens of thousands of people dependent on taxpayer supported medical care, and now...

NOW?

They want to say "Wait, can't spend any money on the most vulnerable. It wouldn't be prudent".

NOW?

I got an idea, lets wait a while. We did it for everyone else.

And let's say we did, just let the debt go up. What happens? Our currency is worth less, but that hurts the toadstool sandwiches more than most, especially people who already feel deprivation every day.

And that would make that Chinese stuff those people are importing to sell us too expensive to make anywhere but here, and we might have to try opening up a few factories and offering some government-sponsored training or something. People who were exporting will have to sell it to us, which gives them the only reason anyone ever really created a job in history, demand.

We can figure it out later, but that doesn't sound terrible to me. They say there will be inflation - I am guessing a few million people who see medical care being yanked from them at the end of a life spent working for some cheap-ass Mr. Charlie no-account store owner who wouldn't pay enough for retirement might as well deal with that as dying with the remains of a three-day old breakfast on their chest, in bed, where someone says they looked in on them yesterday. Mostly because Mr. Charlie wanted a tax decrease.

But you mentioned "easy" in that first post <G>

[dkf]

15. This is exactly what you mentioned...they are fessing up and saying there won't be the funding

So we need to change the program years into the future.

[OKNancy]

16. Actually it is realistic.

First, any saving moving the age up is minimal. Every non-biased review has said this.
Secondly, as I've written to you before when you beat the drum for falling in line with the Republicans, Medicare can be sustained and even if it isn't, so what. Not all programs have to pay for themselves. Things should be judged on what is the greater good.
There are plenty of other places to cut if that is what is needed.

Finally, raising the age is not anything more than a scalp for the Republicans. Why go along with it.
And fortunately, your idea is not going to fly. It will never happen. It may be the "easiest", but good things aren't always easy.

[dkf]

18. Medicare doesn't even try to pay for itself so that is moot. The question is if it is payable at all

Look at Greece. An insolvent country can't pay for a lot of things.

[OKNancy]

20. LOL - now this is ridiculous. There is no comparison

again this is a right-wing talking point.. straight out of Fox News

[dkf]

21. Maybe if you read our own government's reports once in a while you would understand.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43539

What Is the Budget and Economic Outlook for 2014 to 2022 If Many Current Policies Are Continued (As in CBO’s Alternative Fiscal Scenario)?
Under the alternative fiscal scenario, deficits over the 2014–2022 period would be much higher than those projected in CBO’s baseline, averaging about 5 percent of GDP rather than 1 percent. Revenues would remain below 19 percent of GDP throughout that period, and outlays would rise to more than 24 percent. Debt held by the public would climb to 90 percent of GDP by 2022—higher than at any time since shortly after World War II.

Real GDP would be higher in the first few years of the projection period than in CBO’s baseline economic forecast, and the unemployment rate would be lower. However, the persistence of large budget deficits and rapidly escalating federal debt would hinder national saving and investment, thus reducing GDP and income relative to the levels that would occur with smaller deficits. In the later part of the projection period, the economy would grow more slowly than in CBO’s baseline, and interest rates would be higher. Ultimately, the policies assumed in the alternative fiscal scenario would lead to a level of federal debt that would be unsustainable from both a budgetary and an economic perspective.

[OKNancy]

24. I understand plenty. Here is what I understand

Paul Ryan quote: “put us on par with countries like Greece” and that being “like Greece” will mean “sudden cuts to benefits, sudden tax increases, and really, a fundamental change to the American way of life as we know it.”

This is exactly what you continue to spout. Nothing but right wing talking points.
It's conservative rhetoric.

1. cumulative U.S government debtis still far below the level of Greece’s debt, and the U.S. government paid out less than one-third of what the Greek government paid in interest payments.
2. The US has no problem selling bonds
3. Greece has lost 3x's the output that the USA did in the 1930's
4. Our deficit is 1/3 that of Greece
5. The USA is still the richest economy in the world and has safeguards that Greece doesn't

So please stop using Greece as a bogeyman. That's what the right-wing nutjobs do. You wouldn't want people to think you are a rightwing nutjob, would you?

[dkf]

25. We aren't Greece...yet. But we could be.

That isn't the future I want. If trying to prevent the economic collapse of this country is being a nut job then so be it. Most of the sane politicians get what I get.

What scares me is that you don't get it. I hate to see your personal finances if you run your household the way you would like this country to be run.

[OKNancy]

27. my finances are just fine, thank you

no need to be scared for me.

[dkf]

28. Ahhhh...so you don't run your household the way you would like this country to be run.

Maybe deep down you do see what I see. You just haven't come to terms with it yet. I have and am preparing for it rather than denying it.

I would love to be provided with health care and a nice social security paycheck in my old age. But I am not counting on it because I've seen this country's budget.

The numbers don't work.

[JaneyVee]

17. Lets NOT think of the easiest way, lets look for a more complex solution that doesn't advocate death

[dkf]

19. Well that is kind or my point. Raising the age is the lazy way.

The hard way is reform of the system.

[dkf]

3. Maybe we should keep hospital part a benefits at 65 but raise the age on the doctors and drugs.

I can see arguing that you have paid into part A and are thus entitled. But seeing as part B and D have not been paid into during a persons lifetime and is heavily subsidized maybe we need to raise the eligibility and raise premiums for this portion.

[Maine-ah]

10. anecdotal and all...

but I'm sure there are plenty of people out there like my Mom. She passed away this past May, at age 67.

Her drugs, monthly, were about $700. On SS income, which was about 1k a month - it was my father's SS, he passed away 17 years ago. She chose to accept his SS instead of hers, because she stayed home until I was old enough to go to school - she raised four children, I am the youngest,(38 years old) the oldest is ten years older than me - so my father's SS pay was higher than hers - with a little bit saved in the bank which was paying for meds that were not covered by medicare or her back up from Blue Cross. Before she became ill, she was working for a museum - $10 an hour.

With out the medicare, my Mom would never have had any of the medical services she needed, and as it was, the medicare still didn't cover the full cost of her meds. Again, she was 67 years old. I don't think raising the age is the answer.


please excuse run on sentences - still working on coffee...

[dkf]

12. I'm very sorry to hear about your mom.

But this is more about your Medicare. These changes aren't going to happen yet sp you still have may years to prepare. If you know it's going to be 67 aren't you going to adjust your retirement age perhaps or save for the premium for later?

Your mom was part of a generation where the women didn't have the opportunities and were largely taken care of by their husbands. But that isn't the case anymore.

[Maine-ah]

13. as a bartender....

I don't have many options. I have no health insurance, no savings, nothing - right now I'm depending on the sale of my Mom's house and using the money from that to form some savings.

When I did have a little bit saved up, I lost my job - where I had all of those things. It's now all gone.

I think my generation is going to get seriously fucked - I know I'm not the only one in this position - all thanks to George II.

[Telly Savalas]

23. Shifting the financial burden of health care costs to 66 year olds on fixed incomes?

That creates more problems than it solves.

Provider reimbursement reform, fraud elimination, and other strategies to make the program more efficient are necessary, as you point out elsewhere in the thread.

Raising the eligibility age is senseless though.

[Honeycombe8]

14. Hard to say. This better not happen. Or there will be hell to pay for anyone who votes

for this...Democrat or Republican.

[Egalitarian Thug]

22. Many, many more that will be shot. This is our problem, we seem completely incapable of objective

reason. I'm not that we ever were, but we have just completely lost it.

[Turbineguy]

26. That's the whole idea!

Just imagine how much money we would have to give to the rich, have wars and do many, many other useful things if people would only die younger?

[HiPointDem]

29. yes. isn't that a sad statement on where we are?