Social Security and Medicare finances worsen
WASHINGTON – Social Security and Medicare are fading even faster under the weight of the recession, heading for insolvency years sooner than previously expected, the government warned Tuesday.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the trustees group, said the new reports were a reminder that "the longer we wait to address the long-term solvency of Medicare and Social Security, the sooner those challenges will be upon us and the harder the options will be."
Geithner said that President Barack Obama was committed to working with Congress to find ways to control runaway growth in both public and private health care expenditures, noting the promise Monday by major health care providers to trim costs by $2 trillion over the next decade.
The findings in the trustees report, the annual checkup given the two benefit programs, did not come as a surprise. Private economists had been predicting that the dates the programs would begin to pay out more than they take in and the dates the trust funds would be insolvent would occur sooner given the economic recession.
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Last week:
Statement from the Baucus 8: Why we risked arrest for single-payer health care
By Margaret Flowers, M.D.
On May 5, eight health care advocates, including myself and two other physicians, stood up to Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and the Senate Finance Committee during a “public roundtable discussion” with a simple question: Will you allow an advocate for a single-payer national health plan to have a seat at the table?
The answer was a loud, “Get more police!” And we were arrested and hauled off to jail.
...
The senators understand that most people want a national health system and that an improved Medicare for All would include everybody and provide better health care at a lower cost. These facts mean nothing to most of them because they respond to only one standard tool of advocacy: money, and lots of it.
...
And so, we have entered a new phase in the movement for health care as a human right: acts of civil disobedience. It is time to directly challenge corporate interests.
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Added on edit:
Since there is no money for anything worthwhile, let's ask the Fed's Inspector General if she knows where the trillions going to Wall Street are:
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXlxBeAvsB8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fcryptogon.com%2F&feature=player_embedded]Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent or committed by the Federal Reserve and where it went.
Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is.[/url]
OK then.
*Heart attack*
(Hospitalization not covered, but social security savings met by early death.)
