Social Security Disability

Just as when individuals spend beyond their means to repay, so too, do states and nations.

"Washington's public debt is nearly $8.5 trillion, which comes to about 58% of the U.S. economy, compared with ratios exceeding 100% in places like Greece. But the U.S. debt is rising fast, and its true size is masked by the surplus run by the Social Security trust fund. Factoring that in, the total national debt is about $13 trillion, or 90% of the economy. Including unfunded liabilities for such programs as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the federal government is looking at a long-term shortfall of about $62 trillion, or about $200,000 for every American." USA Today

When individuals overdraw and extend their credit beyond their means to repay, they declare bankruptcy, settling with their creditors for a small fraction of what they owe. When governments overspend, they raise taxes and, like California, issue IOUs. When nations overspend, they inflate their dollars by printing more money-drastically reducing the buying power of their currency.

It was in 1994 that I sounded an alarm about the potential for a disastrous state with the aging of the 76 million Baby Boomers. "Before 9/11, the Government Accounting Office projected that Social Security would be bankrupt by 2030. Karl Borden, professor of financial economics at the University of Nebraska, predicted it would go bust in 2015." But no one could have predicted that a professor of constitutional law would rape that sacred document as President of the United States by inaugurating the takeover of medical practice and care, 1/5th of the economy.

What is obscene is that this was done over the objections of the people who put the lawmakers in office, and by ignoring the dismal, pathetic fact that Medicare and Medicaid were already bankrupt in government's hands.

It was entitlements which threw Greece into bankruptcy, and it is entitlements which will throw us into bankruptcy if they continue to be funded. As The Heritage Foundation reports:

"The recently released report for 2009 shows that total liabilities are $14.5 trillion, more or less equal to the debt, but up $2.3 trillion from 2008, driven by spending on TARP and declining revenues and tax cuts for low income Americans. However, the long-term excess costs from burgeoning entitlement costs like Social Security and Medicare are $45.8 trillion, up $2.9 trillion a far larger increase. Along with other commitments and contingencies, the total obligations of the U.S. Government total $63.3 trillion, or $63,300,000,000,000."

A trillion is a million million, or a thousand billion.

To get a true picture of what entitlement spending means, The Peter G. Peterson Foundation explains, "Projections show that by 2027, if revenues stay at 18.3% of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] -the level we are used to-they will not even cover net interest, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The federal government will have to borrow to pay for all of the other activities including education, national defense, and homeland security."

Click here to see our debt clock:

Something has to give.

At the outset of 2010, it looked like the feds would cut physicians' rates of pay by 21%. With heavy lobbying they were able to put that off. But many doctors aren't waiting for what they see as inevitable cuts; Texas physicians are getting out of Medicare at the rate of 100 to 200 a year, compared to "a handful" before 2007. Sixty-two percent of primary care doctors are no longer accepting new Medicare patients. They point out that they have already taken at least a 20% cut between 2001 and 2009 by not adjusting upward their allowances. A $1,000 payment in 2001 shrunk to $410 after operating expenses; in 2010 they'll net $290. If the 21% cut goes through, they'll net $72, an 83% net effect since 2001.

On the patient side of the equation, it necessarily means rationing and care decisions made by bureaucrats. And, costs will double in just 1 to 2 years after the full plan goes into effect. And, service will decline. Non-profit hospitals in Massachusetts reported they were near bankruptcy in 2010. And, overcrowded waiting rooms in hospitals have increased since greater numbers of insured individuals has increased.

Fully 50% of all Americans have a chronic condition. And 75% of the $2.6 trillion is spent on health care for those individuals, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Curiously, the percentage of children and teens with a chronic condition increased from 1.7 in the 60's to over 7% in 2004. The leading causes of chronic conditions are heart disease and stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and obesity.

But, nearly all chronic conditions are preventable, says the CDC, by not smoking, being more active regularly, cutting consumption of saturated fat, and stopping binge drinking (defined as ingesting 5 or more drinks for men and 4 or more for women) on one occasion.

Stuart Butler, health analyst and vice president for domestic research at the Heritage Foundation, thinks "we have a very perverse incentive system." What he refers to is typically patients with chronic conditions are sent to specialists, but no one is in charge of the complete person. The specialists never get together and exchange thought about all of his or her problems. Nor is anyone responsible for improving the overall health of that individual.

Group Health Cooperative is experimenting with a "patient-centered medical home," which permits doctors to spend more time with fewer patients to coordinate their care. The Cooperative says it had 29% fewer ER visits and 11% fewer hospitalizations. They claim the program paid for itself with a year. The study was published in the American Journal of Managed Care.

Medicaid is total welfare for those below poverty level. David Tayloe, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, says Medicaid pays doctors 28% less than Medicare. Yet, the young from poor homes are the most vulnerable to chronic disease, says Tayloe, and cites type 2 diabetes as a prime example. Dr. Tayloe practices in rural North Carolina and claims his program, which encourages doctors to accept Medicaid patients by paying monthly fees that reflect the level of sickness, saves $150 million per year. Additionally, a community health network gets an extra fee for coordinating patient care to make sure their kids stay healthy. USA Today

A Rasmussen poll taken just before May 31, discovered that 60% favor repeal of the legislation. Surprisingly, 59% of seniors favor repeal and 49% of voters would like their state to sue the federal government over the legislation. 54% of voters believe the health care legislation will be bad for the country.

Health Care Not A Right

Our Bill of Rights recognizes and describes the rights all Americans have: life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. In the full context of this document, and the Constitution, the provisions are moral and legal imperatives levied on government by citizens -not directives from government to the people. Further, the documents affirm that government will move to protect the rights enumerated.

Rights must be essential paths of action citizens are allowed to pursue without hindrance from any outside force. Neither from a government body nor any other individual or group of individuals.

To assert that we have a right to health care means that everyone has the moral and legal right to force medical professionals to provide care for anyone who demands it. Such a right would enslave all health care professionals. Who, on earth, would even want treatment by anyone who might be willing to accept those terms? It is our freedom to act in the best known ways on behalf of others, for our own benefit, that makes our health care system the finest.

Unfortunately, Medicare and Medicaid are just such programs. Act in government-prescribed ways or you won't get paid, the law says. And, now with the distinct black cloud of nationalized health care on the horizon, doctors are opting out, as well they should. Do you truly want to be cared for by those left after the exodus? And under nationalized health care, the best and the brightest minds will choose not to pursue 8 to 10 years of specialized education and invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in training only to come out on the other side with little prospect of ever getting out of debt.

And to those who say people can't afford health care, the answer is, yes they can-they already are-with tax money taken at the point of a gun by government and given to others.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2010-05-06-editorial06_ST_N.htm http://www.socialsecuritydisabilityspider.com/millenniummandate.html http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/custom?q=cache:7FwH73xmYaUJ:www.pgpf.org/resources/PGPFCitizensGuide.pdf+interest+
on+debt&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=google-coop [http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7009807.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Health_Plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_health_care_reform http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/AAG/chronic.htm http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-09-08-emergency-room-chronic_N.htm http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/
march_2010/health_care_law