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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (1127)	4/14/2006 3:23:18 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Attempts to raise retirement age hit that same roadblock- -the elderly AND AARP lobbies. Today the elderly are accustomed to thinking they should collect SS for twenty or more years. Yep, They get far more back that they eve put in to this Ponzi scheme- -even with inflation accounted for. The retirement age needs to be raised drastically. Raise it to 70 right now and then index is one year per decade and it would extend the life of both SS and Medicare. This means generational war. The pols don't want ot fight it. Reimbursing doctors fairly so that the system would not force distortions and we could evaluate the real costs would be an improvement. My impression is that the majority of docs wil not accept patients who have only Medicare coverage. More and more don't take ANY insurance. You pay them, them bill you insurance separately and see what you can get. The system cannot work anything like the libs want with its current limitations.

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (1127)	4/15/2006 11:44:03 AM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Stave off old-age poverty Although few elderly Americans are officially poor, 75% live on less than $26,777 yearly. Even a tiny amount stashed in investments and savings make a difference in old age. By Scott Burns The shopkeeper of a corner store in a slum looked at the kid and said, "Do you want to know what it's like to be old?" He pulled a 2-pound coffee can from under the counter. He hurled its contents, hundreds of pennies, across the worn Formica counter. "That's what it's like! Every month ends like this -- a banquet of pennies." I remember that as though it happened yesterday. But it was in 1963 in the pre-gentrification South End of Boston. Back then, one worker in three retired to poverty. Today things are better. Sort of. Do you need life insurance? Get a quote. In recent years only one worker in 10 has retired to poverty. It's a change in the right direction, but the income figures for senior citizens are still pretty scary. Not far from the glitz of Naples or fashionable St. Armand's Circle in Sarasota, Fla. -- an entire area known as God's waiting room -- thousands of seniors molder away, counting pennies at the end of each month. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related news and commentary on MSN Money • 10 ways to save after retirement • A no-brainer way to save for retirement • A simpler way to save: the 60% solution • Why women face a retirement crisis • MSN Money Retirement Income Calculator -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A report from the Congressional Research Service, "Income and Poverty Among Older Americans in 2004," spells it out. (Find the report here, at the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations.) It should be read, as a cautionary tale, by every 20-something because it's the straight statistics, not a sales brochure for mutual funds or annuities. Rich is relative Here are some of the highlights: Poverty is, well, poverty. The good news is that only one senior in 10 lives in poverty. The bad news is that the poverty threshold for a single person 65 or older is $9,060 a year. For a couple, the figure is $11,418. This isn't shabby chic or senior funky. It's hunger. Senior fat cats are those with incomes of $50,000 or more. The data for this report comes from the Current Population Survey done by the Census Bureau. Someone 65 or older with an income of only $26,777 is in the top 25% of all seniors. They're in the top 50% with an income of only $15,199. Most income comes from Social Security. Seven in 10 seniors received at least half their income from Social Security. Nearly four in 10 received at least 90% of their income from Social Security. In 2005, according to the report, the monthly average Social Security check is $963 for a single person, with a couple collecting $1,583. Very little income comes from personal savings and investments. For all the exhortations to save from the investment/retirement complex and for all the Savings-Bond drives at work, most seniors don't have much interest, dividend or capital gains income. The median reported amount (half have more, half less) was $1,000. In today's markets that implies a nest egg of about $25,000 or less. Except for the genuinely wealthy, seniors have most of their net worth in their houses, cars and other possessions. There isn't much of a cash cushion out there. There are, of course, some mitigating factors. The cash income of seniors is relatively unencumbered. They don't pay employment taxes unless they work. Most pay little or nothing in income taxes. And they aren't putting money aside for the future because they are living the future. Also, many own their houses and cars free and clear -- so little of their income goes to monthly debt payments. And they have Medicare, while millions of younger people who work have no medical insurance at all. The story has a moral So it's a little less scary than the dollar figures indicate. But the operative word is "little." What does this all mean? Seventy years after the creation of Social Security, 40 years after the creation of Medicare and decades after the creation of tax-deferred savings plans, most Americans are still vulnerable, still poor in financial assets and still ending their month with a "banquet of pennies." Saving a tiny amount of money every month or every week can make all the difference. moneycentral.msn.com