At the end of the revolutionary war, Hamiltons plan for debt assumption (Congress assuming the colonies war debt, followed by each state paying it down equally) was a raw deal to the mid-atlantic states who had paid off most of their debt as opposed to northern states, S.C., and Georgia. Hamilton reached compromise by lending his support to the location of the nations capital in the Mid-Atlantic.
So what does that mean to this disccusion?
Limiting, changing, or disolving Social Security (SS) would be a raw deal to some, somewhere, no matter how it is done. "You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time.". The GAO's numbers are very real, and have stayed consistend (modified for inflation) since Reagan. At it's current state SS will die under the weight of the baby boomers. That isn't my opinion, it's the conclusion of 15 years of study by the Genral Accounting Office of the United States.
My opinion would be that I cannot justify spending that much money as a taxpayer.
Quote:
The $53 trillion is what federal, state and local governments need immediately — stashed away, earning interest, beyond the $3 trillion in taxes collected last year — to repay debts and honor future benefits promised under Medicare, Social Security and government pensions. And like an unpaid credit card balance accumulating interest, the problem grows by more than $1 trillion every year that action to pay down the debt is delayed.
-USA Today
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The system was designed as a saftey net, not a full on retirment fund.
So if social security was to be disolved, how could a compromise be reached?
I submit the following.
Overhual Medicare. By compensating for the lose of SS with a comprehensive medical coverage system Decrease medical patents back to the 15 year maximum they where in the 1970's, allowing the fast tracking of medical technolgy into Generic eqiuvilents. Reinvest in emergency rooms to make them competative and cheaper via volume to private doctors. Make the system of medical treatment in this country as good as the baby boomers remeber in their youth.
Possabilities include:
-the classification of pharmacutical kickbacks to doctors for name brand over generic prescriptions as unethical by liscence standards.
-The classification of such drugs as viagra as "quality of life", make them incompatable for coverage. (Currently, doctors use emotional distress as a medicare condition to bill medicare for erectile disfunction perscriptions your paying for)
Because a nearly 1/3rd of SS is currently spent on some form of health, move the focus away from retirment, and towards concentrating of a large portion of SS's cost. A concetrated Medicare could purchase in bulk and at discount to a higher degree than most of the fortune 500 companies in the Dow, outmanuvering the private sector and creating competition against the private sector at once. Allowing Medicare to act a competing business would still leave the markets of Pediatrics and practicioning on those under 65 intact, while making the private sector intensly aware that a failure to be competative will simply cause the defection of their clients once they reach eleigability.
If entire fortune 500 companies provide medical service to 60% of the public for less than a total market of $500 Billion, then an additional $1 Trillion injected into the system with a 1% tax (as opposed to 2.5% now) could cover the remaining 40% plus overlap in facilities investment to the 60% currently possesing insurance of some form. They key is allowing the market to govern by treating Medicare as a NFP business that does not have to be governed by low bidder or socialy corret polcies governing most government business, allowing true market competition.
GIve them assumption, but also give them the Potomac.