Saving Social Security
and Medicare
Specific recommendations are made to keep Social Security and Medicare in their present
government-run status for the future without increasing Payroll contributions from
Employers/Employees or reducing benefits, while eliminating all government funding and
lowering Deficits. In addition, recommendations are made to vest ownership of these
programs to the beneficiaries and removing threats to their future from the special interests
and the political arena.
Some in Congress argue that it is absolutely necessary, in order to
save the country
financially, that Social Security be phased out for a system of
private accounts and that Medicare be phased out for a system of
government vouchers to help pay for
private insurance.
The phase-outs require
government spending and increased Deficits. The
only stakeholders that benefit are the financial and insurance
companies.
By eliminating government subsidies to private insurance companies for Medicare Parts C and D, adding a small premium to the now premium-free Part A and including a government-run Rx plan without a donut hole to substitute for the private Part D plans, the program will achieve a surplus in 2020. The plan eliminates all government funding of $472 billion in 2020 alone thus lowering the deficit by the $472 billion in 2020 alone.
The threat of government default on guaranteed special government securities held by the Social Security Trust Fund can be eliminated by ending their use, buying government bonds and paying off the amount borrowed to date over a long period. Social Security can be self-supporting and successful without a cent of government funding.The Trustees Report forecasts a high inflationary period lasting 65 straight years starting in 2020. The result is that a 2011 dollar will only have a buying power of 63 cents in 2030. The forecast does not account for the last of the baby boomers all retiring by 2030 and that they will all have passed by 2050. Instead, the forecast has the number of beneficiaries increasing every year through 2050 reaching 98,217 in that year. The Report has the maximum annual benefit increasing every year reaching $108,798 in 2060. Therefore, a 25% reduction in scheduled benefits is not significant, except for the false inflationary period. The Report shows the peak Surplus to be $3.1 trillion in 2021. This results in a false early threat of default by the government which the Report fails to acknowledge. Note that the Trustees present a Low Cost plan with less inflation that never depletes the Surplus and results in a whopping Surplus of $4.7 trillion in 2090. Therefore a solution to the insolvency of the Social Security program is to cap CPI increases to 1.8% annualy.
Americans need to demand a true accounting by the CBO. Americans need the truth, not false arguments to privatize the programs for the benefit of Wall Sreet.Please ask your Represenative and Senators to ask for a CBO report on David Dow's recommendations, hopefully compared to the special interests' recommendations.
The author sponsored the web site, www.pensionwatch.com, from 2004 until 2011. The website became the number one, popularly visited, nonsponsored web site on Yahoo.com Web Search under the key words, "protect your pension". The objective of the web site was to protect the retirement security of all Americans. The author now writes under the pen name David Dow. He has published the book, "Saving Social Security And Medicare", under this pen name. Go to http://prlog.org/11627804. 
