Obama on Social Security

[warrior1]

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/seniors/

Plan to Strengthen Retirement Security
The Problem

Insecure Retirement Savings: Retirement savings are near a historic low and 75 million working Americans lack employer-based retirement plans. Too many companies have dumped their pension obligations, leaving workers in the cold.

Income Security: With skyrocketing health care, energy and housing costs, and the risk of being defrauded by insurance companies, too many seniors do not have the resources to live comfortably.
Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan
Protect Social Security

Obama and Biden are committed to ensuring Social Security is solvent and viable for the American people, now and in the future. Obama and Biden will be honest with the American people about the long-term solvency of Social Security and the ways we can address the shortfall. Obama and Biden will protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries alike. And they do not believe it is necessary or fair to hardworking seniors to raise the retirement age. Obama and Biden are strongly opposed to privatizing Social Security. As part of a bipartisan plan that would be phased in over many years, they will ask those making over $250,000 to contribute a bit more to Social Security to keep it sound.

Obama does not support uncapping the full payroll tax of 12.4 percent rate. Instead, he and Joe Biden are considering plans that would ask those making over $250,000 to pay in the range of 2 to 4 percent more in total (combined employer and employee).

snip

[HillbillyBob]

1. Maybe its a start. I went off on the other thread

I get upset because w/o my meager income or the cost of my medicines I will not live out the year, and we will lose our home. Which we have low payments thanks to finding an abandoned place and starting over....again, no one else wanted it.
It is a nice place we call Heaven on the Hill.
My meds alone cost more than our income with or without my SSD.
I have HIV , Seizures, lived thru removal or precancerous sections of my colon 3x, CMV organ failure. heart attack, pneumonia.... I am finally able to start to make a dent in keeping house up.
With out the meds, i start to fail very quickly, the seizures are at the rate of at least one a day without meds.
I used to be a heavy industry construction electrician, in non union states, so I always had a side job to keep above or at least tread water, as a short order cook, waiter, furniture re-finisher, dishwasher, odd job handyman.
I paid in and I paid in fully, being gay and not legal to marry and get the couples tax breaks I believe I paid in my full share before I was 30.
If I had my druthers and the meds for hiv research had been started earlier I might not have had quite the rough time I have.
I m the luckiest man that I have a partner that puts up with me and cares for me when I am ill.

[Le Taz Hot]

2. He seems to have changed his mind.

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Obama_vows_action_with_US_deficit_t_01072009.html

on a LOT of things.

[Two Americas]

6. relevant excerpts

"The CBO said the economy was reeling from a slump in tax revenues allied to higher spending on social safety nets."

...

"Obama pledged to rein in the government's biggest long-term commitments -- "entitlement spending" such as Social Security retirement benefits and Medicare health insurance for seniors."

[Bluenorthwest]

3. If they still mean what they said then,

They need to say so. Seniors and Disabled people are nervous about this week's rhetoric.

[EnviroBat]

4. Just curious here, but do other countries have a similar "Social Security" system in place?

Do they have a similar retirement plan in Europe?

[MiniMe]

5. Most other countries have universal health care

I would love to see a study on how much of their income seniors pay for medications.