Social Security "reform": If you're under 50, watch out

[CousinIT]

You're eager to buy your favorite candy bar. You go into the store. You pay the usual amount. But when you open the familiar wrapping, you get a terrible surprise. It's smaller — way smaller — than you expected.

Millions of Americans may have an experience like this in the future, only with something far more important. The shrunken candy bar will be their Social Security checks. Benefits will be far smaller than expected if Social Security is "reformed." The change would come through a bill submitted by Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Plano.

You would not know this from his news release. It bears a modest title: "Sam Johnson Unveils Plan to Permanently Save Social Security." The release describes a series of proposed changes that would make Social Security solvent for 75 years.

This is huge. The 2016 Trustees' report estimates that the trust fund will be exhausted by 2034. Worse, the actuarial deficit over the next 75 years is a whopping 2.66 percent of taxable payroll. Since the employment tax is 12.4 percent, that's a huge amount. Measured another way; the unfunded liability amounts to $11.4 trillion. Today.

That $11.4 trillion is not on hand. And that's the candy bar dilemma. The only way to deliver the promised benefits is to increase the tax. The alternative is to shrink the candy bar. That means finding a way to weasel out on promised benefits while continuing to collect the same amount in taxes. Future retirees will pay the same high tax but receive less in benefits.

What a deal.

http://www.dallasnews.com/business/personal-finance/2016/12/30/social-security-reform-50-watch

FACTS HERE (ie: SOCIAL. SECURITY. CUTS. ARE. NOT. NECESSARY. AT. ALL.) http://www.socialsecurityworks.org/faq/

AND

Medicare is NOT "bankrupt because of Obamacare" (something you'll hear repeatedly from PAUL RYAN - it's a LIE): http://www.cbpp.org/research/health/medicare-is-not-bankrupt

[guillaumeb]

1. Social Security Reform 101:

Tax all earned and unearned income at the same rate that is currently levied.

[Freddie]

4. And scrap the cap

I'm a payroll admin and after all these years I still get pissed off when the highly paid get their mid-year "raise."

[Achilleaze]

2. The Republicans want to cut SS, Medicaid, Medicare and Veteran's benefits so they can

...give more, more, more to their freaking Chickenhawk Fat Cats.

[Skittles]

3. no way will they exempt the baby boomers

remember, Ronald Reagan already fucked us on Social Security

[peggysue2]

5. What Tom Price wants

Tom Price, Trump's HHS Secretary nominee, wants to initiate 'balanced billing" into the Medicare program. Though the term sounds innocuous enough, balanced billing would ensure that doctors and medical facilities could jack up their costs, knowing that Medicare patients would be forced to pay the difference between the insurance payout and the final bill. The AMA is all in for the policy reform because we all know that doctors simply do not make enough. Currently, GPs on average make between $165-180,000 and specialists garner on average well over $200,000 per annum. See here:

http://fortune.com/2016/04/04/doctor-salaries/

and here:

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Jobs_as_Physicians_%2F_Doctors/Salary

You might note that Orthopedic specialists--Tom Price's specialty--is in the top compensation tier, $400,000+.

If anyone you care about is on Medicare, the time for alarm bells is now. And, of course, balanced billing is but one 'reform' currently on the table. Because . . . Freedom!

The rest of us can just curl up and die. Ugh.

[Squinch]

6. Maybe if the Pentagon could figure out how NOT to "lose" a trillion dollars a year, this wouldn't be

a problem.

[Doreen]

7. Right now.

I am just counting the days until I get either nothing or cut in half if not more. I am not fifty yet ( next year ) but I am disabled and we know how much the dictator likes disabled people.

[MANative]

8. I was stunned that my ultra-conservative sister-in-law told me during our holiday visit...

that she completely supported raising the cap. Wonder if there are more like her, and what it would take to get them to get vocal about it. I know she couldn't give a rat's ass about getting involved - she's very affluent and in general, a Rand-type - but she at least understands the mechanics of the solution.