1984 anyone?

 

Has it ever occurred to you why America has been the greatest country? It is only until recently when we have started the slide to socialism that we have become a weaker nation.
I believe the government printing money with no gold backing for decades, may have had something to do with the slide.

 

Don't disagree with that at all. And, now, the presses can't keep up with the demand.

 

The same people that cry socialism when the government intervenes takes from the government coffers too.
If you complain about the possibility of government assistance in HealthCare and such then don't use it. Refuse social security and don't let your parents and grandparents take it either. Pass on sending your kids to public schools too!

Yes you will always have poor people and stupid people. Welfare isn't meant to make poor people rich, rather survive and that is what they do.
HealthCare is expensive for many reasons. A big one is the insurance a doctor has to carry because of frivolous lawsuits. Another is all of the paperwork for insurance and Medicare.

Has anyone ever seen an explanation of benefits from their insurance co? A Dr bills $200 and accepts $50 in payment in the end. Just charge the $50 to the patient and maybe most would be able to pay and eliminate the ins co.
Do you get a pricelist or estimate from your Dr or hospital...no you just go and pay what they charge blindly.

We have a severely flawed system!

 

On social security, I voted for people years ago that wanted a choice of paying social security or doing your own investment. I am forced to pay social security so I will take back what they will give me. It will never be as much as I paid and could have earned on it.

Medicare, I had no say in the matter. Most group policies make you sign up for medicare when you are elgible and then they make up the difference. I can tell you this, medicare sucks and most doctors hate it. It would be ugly if I did not have the additional insurance.

When you live in a socialistic society, you have to live with it whether you like it or not. Just because you are forced to use it does not mean you don't believe there was/is a better alternative.

 

Most people get way more back from social security than they ever paid in.

I still want to know how someone that makes like $10/hr supporting a family is supposed to pay for HealthCare and their retirement etc.when their employers don't. Its not just kids and burger flippers that are in that boat.

I know that it is easy to say get a better job but they don't always exist. Someone has to take the crappy jobs too. CNAs that take care of older people come to mind...they have hard jobs that pay little and are very necessary.

There are more than welfare queens that lack health insurance and 401k's.

It would be great if families were so tight they helped each other like that but it is the exception not the rule.

We spend more for HealthCare than any other nation in the world an still 1 of 6 Americans have no insurance. We spend more than any other country on education yet have the dumbest kids. We spend more for prisons than education!

 

You are welcome to leave anytime, and go to one of the other countries that is so much better.

Those other countries don't spend nearly as much of their health care funds on lawsuits and malpractice insurance, and un-necessary tests to protect from the inevitable lawsuits. Baiscallly, the system is in constant CYA mode, and that is very expensive. Tort reform would save us billions.

Another burden that those other countries don't have to the same extent as us is caused by illegal immigration. Yes, not only do we treat them at our county hospitals, we educate them in our schools and keep them in our prisons.

Go ask your county supervisor how much of the county hospital budget is spent on illegal aliens. Then ask how much is spent on litigation and malpractice insurance. They won't tell you, because they don't want you to know.

Want to massively improve the cost effectiveness of our health care system? Tort reform and no services to illegal aliens. Ta-daa! It's fixed! Oh, snap. Congress is full of lawyers who want amnesty for illegal aliens. So I guess those things are off the table.

Honestly, it seems to me like the government has gradually been breaking the healthcare system and the economy for years. When it all collapses, they get to take it over and increase their own power and control.

Which brings us to 2009. They POTUS and Congress really really really don't want to take over the auto industry, banks, wall street, healthcare, cable companies, mortgage industry, etc... but they have no choice. I mean, the President thinks Doctors will rip a kid's tonsils out, just to make a few bucks. He reads letters every day from people without health care. He has to protect the children!

Yeah, right.

 

http://people.howstuffworks.com/soci...ty-number6.htm

 

So she got a check for $54.50 per month on average?

 

Ida May isn't the perfect example, but it does give an idea of the problems of the system.
But keep in mind, you pay 6.7% into FICA, and your employer matches that amount. So for every $1, you are payed , a total of 13.4% of the is payed into that account. That adds up over the course of 45 to 50 years of employment. Also what you receive is based on how much you payed in, and most of us don't live to see 85 years of age. So you only draw out of that account about 20 years.

 

Yep you got it. For Every month she lived after she retired, she received a check twice what she put into it.

 

Yeah why don't you tell that to my father who has owned his own business since 1989. Every year he's paid close to 50% into social security. Now he's been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease and he will see no where near the amount of money he put in. He could have done alot more with that money over the years and now its going to someone else even though it is HIS money. He's in stage 4 and hasn't even filed for disability yet because he can make more money then relying on the government and he can't tie his own shoes.

 

50%?
I'm not arguing that the system is flawed, I was merely stating that Ida Mae wasn't the best example. She was merely the first beneficiary, and she lived a long time.
The average age of life is somewhere in the neighborhood of 77 to 78 years depending on what demographic you average. I been self employed most of my life, and I'll never get back what I paid in. But I do have to pay it, or the Government would take everything I have.

 

Question, he paid in 50% to SS, or his total taxes for Self employment were a total of 50% ( which is the both the employee and employer equivalent for FICA & Medicaid as well as income tax at effective tax rate ) ?

Self employment tax is the Social Security taxes ( up to the cut off ) for both the employee and employer and the Medicaid contributions for both employee and employer that everyone pays anyway. This gets lost on self employed people at times.

Top tax rate was 35%, add to this the 12.4% for self employment tax ( Social Security x 2 ) which is 47.4%. This is only seen at the amount of money made over ~ 350K per year ( 2008 rates, the rates are back up now to 39.6 ), and Social Security shuts off at 105K I think ( or maybe 95K last year ), so the combo rate should never be seen. The highest should have been somewhere around 38% for the money made between ~80K and 105K.

 

To be honest, 50% is the figure my mother gave to me (She does the book-keeping). She may be confused (Recent death of her brother combined with my father's and sister's illnesses has her strained) however, I do know some of my Father's investments over the years. Over $100k might be likely, $350k is very unlikely. Either way, my father has busted hiss butt everyday, even days he didn't feel like to provide for us 5 and others outside the immediate family. Why should he work any harder to pay money into a system he will never see (He's 59 by the way, been diagnosed for 7 years)