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Politics : A US National Health Care System?
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To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (4418)2/11/2008 6:35:24 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) of 42652
 
None of that means that Medicare doesn't dwarf Iraq as a fiscal issue.

The main issue with Medicare is its fairly rapid growth and the fact that the growth will probably continue. Its already bigger than Iraq. And it will probably eventually exceed the total spend on Defense and Social Security combined, even as social security continues to grow.

Iraq, compared to Medicare, is a short term thing. Its 07 costs where a temporary peak with the surge. Look at its average cost per year since its started and you get a lower figure. Look 10 years down the line and the cost might be zero, and if it isn't zero it will be much lower than today's cost.

Medicare has never run a debt although it is

Medicare is a spending and a tax. The spending is the fiscal problem. If you double the tax the spending is just as much a problem, it just (in purely fiscal terms) gets covered by the tax. But the tax is an economic problem.

maybe we should pay for it like Bush paid for the war.....with a tax cut.

Decent throwaway line, but totally meaningless.

There is no specific tie between the tax cut and Iraq. More importantly ties between Medicare and Medicare taxes don't really mean alot when you are measuring the burden of Medicare. The tax is just how its paid for, it doesn't lessen the burden, or even mean that each dollar spent on Medicare causes less fiscal strain than a dollar spent on Iraq.
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