Social Security, Medicare, and Fuzzy Math

The figures in the article are bull, because they ignore the time value of money. If you get $10 taxed from you at age 22, you cannot compare that to a $20 benefit received at age 65. That $10 would have grown to $54 at modest 4% interest. At a 4% interest, the medicare payments would be equivalent to $298K.
(I can recreate their $114,000 number by simply mulitplying 2.9% on $89,000 for 44 years, age 22-65.)

Social Security is a huge rip off. If that couple had social security in ultrasafe bonds earning a 4% interest rate, then they would have amassed $1.2 million, versus the $550K they will receive from the gov't. Coca-Cola, a very safe company, pays 4.875% on recent bonds.

AP: WASHINGTON – You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and think you deserve your money's worth: full benefits after you retire.


Nearly three out of five people say in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll that they paid into the system so their benefits shouldn't be cut.

But a newly updated financial analysis shows that what people paid into the system doesn't come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees.

Consider an average-wage, two-earner couple together earning $89,000 a year. Upon retiring in 2011, they would have paid $114,000 in Medicare payroll taxes during their careers.

But they can expect to receive medical services — from prescriptions to hospital care — worth $355,000, or about three times what they put in.

The estimates by economists Eugene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane of the Urban Institute think tank illustrate the huge disconnect between widely-held perceptions and the numbers behind Medicare's shaky financing. Although Americans are worried about Medicare's long-term solvency, few realize the size of the gap.
"The fact that you put money into the system doesn't mean it's there waiting for you to collect," said Steuerle.
By comparison, Social Security taxes and expected benefits come closer to balancing out.

The same hypothetical couple retiring in 2011 will have paid $614,000 in Social Security taxes, and can expect to collect $555,000 in benefits. They will have paid about 10 percent more into the system than they're likely to get back.

Many workers may believe their Medicare payroll taxes are going for their own insurance after they retiree, but the money is actually used to pay the bills of seniors currently on the program.

Republican Choices in 2012: None of the Above.

Palin can't win. She's nice and I don't disagree with her on any major issues, but she isn't articulate and is too folksy. You can be folksy if you have serious experience, like Reagan, but not if your experience is in question.

Gingrich cheated on his wife plus promoted man-made global warming with Nancy Pelosi. He's a non-starter. If he can keep a promise to his wife before God, what makes us think he'll keep a promise to a voter?
Huckabee is a lightweight. It would be like running Dole again.

Romney would be the best if it wasn't for Romneycare, which is eerily similar to Obamacare, and is failing. He can say it was good in theory and has failed in implementation, but what big government program does not follow that same pattern?

Failures in Socialized Medicine

Continuing to document stories, here are additional stories over the last two weeks:

Dec 3: One in five mothers left alone in labour as maternity care 'still letting down women'


Nov 29: NHS shamed by third-rate hospitals: Needless deaths and thousands of blunders exposed


Nov 22: Retired NHS care worker killed by stomach cancer despite 50 visits to hospital and GP


Nov 20: Woman, 26, died of DVT after being 'fobbed off' by nurse who relied too much on computerised guide






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Failures in Socialized Medicine

I see stories from the UK that highlight the failure of socialized medicine and like to post them because the US media won't. While the care was "free" (funded by taxes), the downside that is hard to quantify is the decline in quality.

These stories will continue and continue. They are a product of NHS being a monopoly. A decline in quality of service is a symptom of all monopolies.We all learn that corporate monopolies are bad, but we somehow think that government monopolies will be better.
 
The aggregate cost of healthcare can be cut if people just die quickly. The poor woman died at 44 and had no costly chemotherapy and hopsital stays because the doctors kept misdiagnosing her.



Daily Mail - A mother has died of stomach cancer after her GP and ten doctors failed to diagnose the disease. Angela Skeffington had reported classic stomach cancer symptoms since April but was not given a specialist CT scan until late August, when the disease was finally spotted. But by then the cancer had spread to her liver and lymph nodes and Mrs Skeffington, 44, from Birmingham was told she only had weeks to live.

The former warehouse worker had previously been misdiagnosed with anorexia, depression and period pain.
Her angry relatives have now attacked the NHS for failing to diagnose the cancer earlier. Her sister Christine Layton, 45, from Rugeley, West Midlands, said: 'Doctors tried giving Angela chemotherapy, but it was too late by then and didn't work. 'I know survival rates are not always very long, but my sister could still be here today if the doctors had listened to her. 'She may not have had a lifetime, but they could have given her more time with her children and grandchildren.' For five months, the grandmother-of-five claimed she complained of stabbing pains to the stomach, blood in her vomit and stools, plus a loss of appetite to her GP, Dr Atta Shah at the Khyber Surgery in Saltley, Birmingham, along with a further ten doctors during 12 visits to Heartlands Hospital A&E. Dr Shah had booked a referral to hospital for Mrs Skeffington in June, but she was still awaiting an appointment when she was diagnosed with cancer in August. Speaking after she was first diagnosed with terminal cancer, Mrs Skeffington, who lived with partner John, had said: 'I was made to feel like a nuisance by all the doctors. 'I was treated worse than an animal.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336057/Birmingham-mother-3-dies-11-doctors-fail-diagnose-stomach-cancer.html#ixzz17L6ajjSg



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336057/Birmingham-mother-3-dies-11-doctors-fail-diagnose-stomach-cancer.html#ixzz17L6Xehti