#104 Derek:
“And it’s only taken what 70 years for you to get to the point where you can make the calculation that 30 years from now we’ll have to get rid of social security (or just raise the retirement age and milk it for a few more decades).”
There were people who had pegged it correctly for the Ponzi scheme that it is right from its’ inception, and there have been voices all along, noramally quiet, accountant-style folks who have been saying that the books aren’t balancing all along.
So it’s taken only 50-70 years,(unlike you, I am not discounting the doubts that were raised back in the 1980s), for it to become fairly self-evident that the thing is a bust…strangely enough, that was about the amount of time it took for people in Russia to dope out that the OTHER collectivism, Marxism, was bunk, too.
Naturally, to “save the system”, you’re apparently endorsing what the collectivists have already done…raising the retirement age. But this wasn’t the retirement age that was advertised when I first started working, back then it was 65, and now, in my case it will be 67.
If you were a private business and pulled that, you’d go to jail for fraud.
But there again, it’s just so very inherent in a Leftist to “move the goalposts” and put on a face of hurt innocence when called out on his cheat.
And bear in mind that they raised the age for me, what’s stopping them from raising the age on you…say to 75…and then taxing as income your monthly benefit?
Time will tell.
“We’ve been reforming medicare by expanding the prescription drug plan, expanding coverage of children, a further planned expansion of everyone and a public plan. That’s not steps away from collectivism”
That’s not “reforming” that’s “expanding”. We are spending more money on health-care, but apparently w’re not spending ENOUGH to please some parties.
When you go on shopping spree, you can call it “reforming” all you like, but the bills still come due.
Let me point out what this “reform” has really done by noting the costs of two surgical procedures that have actually DECREASED.
Boob jobs and Laser vision correction surgery.
No HMO or PPO that I’m aware of will pay for a breast augmentation for cosmetic “self-esteem” purposes…there’s no “subsidy” to perform it, therefore, the people who are in that line of work, (and may I say here: God bless them!), have to charge what women can afford to pay.
That jiggles out to be about 5-7 grand depending where you get the “bolt-ons” installed.
Not too long ago, surgical vision correction was performed by only a handful of specialists and was stoopidly expensive. But todaym with coupons, you can get your headlights adjusted for as little as a grand per eye.
In large part that’s because every HMO/PPO’s vision care plan blows chunks, and has traditionally only covered eyeglasses.
Thanks to technology, and the fact that people need to pay for it out of their own pockets, the cost of this procedure is what folks can afford.
