@98. jharp: – How about we try the definition of bankruptcy?
No problem. In fact, I’ll give you an advantage. I’ll demonstrate that Medicare is not only financially bankrupt, but morally and intellectually bankrupt as well.
Pay attention.
“Bankruptcy is a legally declared inability or impairment of ability of an individual or organization to pay its creditors.”
Okay. Medicare derives “income” from four basic sources, these are:
1. Directly withheld payroll taxes, seized at the point of a gun and/or threat of imprisonment from working taxpayers.
2. Medicare member premiums which – because they typically come out of the money that members receive from Social Security benefits – are essentially a wash in terms of overall federal revenue. That is, it’s “income” in name only – it is ultimately little more than a transfer from one federal accounting line to another.
3. Taxes – again seized at the point of a gun and/or threat of imprisonment – on the Medicare benefits that are paid out on behalf of members. Essentially, this is a tax on the benefit that has been paid for via a tax.
4. State transfers – once again, these are coerced through federal threats of withholding State funding of various programs paid for by each State’s resident Taxpayers.
What a scam, eh?
Together, these sources of income don’t come anywhere near the amount required to pay Medicare’s creditors. In order to do that – which they do, by the way, at a rate that is 20% lower than private insurers, backed up by federal law – the Medicare system must steal an increasing amount of money each year from the federal budget’s general revenue fund.
You might wish to parse this theft as “borrowing”, even though the resulting “loan” earns no interest and will never be repaid in any case, i.e., it is not “borrowing” by any conventional definition one will find. It is speciously “legalized” theft of Taxpayer dollars to pay for a federal entitlement, i.e., redistribution of wealth.
All that said, even if it WERE “borrowing”, since the Medicare system has no other source of income available to pay this NEW creditor – the U.S. Taxpayer – it is perpetually in default on that debt.
As of this year, and going forward, Medicare is so completely incapable of meeting its expenses that by 2012 it will be forced to rely on deficit spending to make up the shortfall. So not only can it not sustain operations through the outright theft of U.S. Taxpayer dollars, in two years it will have to borrow from the Chinese, et al., in order to continue operation. Again, since Medicare has no financial resources available to pay THAT new creditor, it will remain perpetually in default on that debt as well.
Each year, the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds release – i.e., they legally declare – these facts, that is, they outline precisely how Medicare is perpetually in default and unable to pay its creditors without the theft of U.S. Taxpayer dollars. They provide detailed accounting of Medicare’s expenses, income and the amount it takes from the general fund to make up for the difference (see Chart D for history and projections).
Therefore – based on your definition – Medicare is financially bankrupt.
The Medicare system is based on intellectually bankrupt reasoning, as demonstrated by the fact that it is allowed to operate at an increasing deficit, annually, with the clear understanding that at some point the piper must be paid and the system will have to be shut down – those retirees in the plan at that time will be left in the lurch.
The Medicare system is based on morally bankrupt reasoning, as it must resort to extortion in order to maintain its membership. Retirees who wish to opt for an alternative to Medicare are robbed, through federal policy, of the Social Security benefits they’ve paid into for decades.
Oh yeah… QED.
