Senior benefit costs up 24%
'Health care crisis' leads to 8-year rise
By Dennis Cauchon
USA TODAY
The cost of government benefits for seniors soared to a record $27,289 per senior in 2007, according to a USA TODAY analysis.
That's a 24% increase above the inflation rate since 2000. Medical costs are the biggest reason. Last year, for the first time, health care and nursing homes cost the government more than Social Security payments for seniors age 65 and older. The average Social Security benefit per senior in 2007 was $13,184.
"We have a health care crisis. We don't have an entitlement crisis," says David Certner, legislative policy director of the AARP, which represents seniors.
He says seniors shouldn't be blamed for the growing cost of government retirement programs.
The federal government spent $952 billion in 2007 on elderly benefits, up from $601 billion in 2000. It's the biggest function of the federal government. States chipped in $27 billion more in 2007, mostly for nursing homes.
All three major senior programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — experienced dramatically escalating costs that outstripped inflation and the growth in the senior population.
Benefits per senior are soaring at a time when the senior population is not. The portion of the U.S. population ages 65 and older has been constant at 12% since 2000.
The senior boom, however, starts big time in 2011, when the first baby boomers — 79 million people born between 1946 and 1964 — turn 65 and qualify for Medicare health insurance. The oldest baby boomers turn 62 this year and qualify for Social Security at reduced benefits.
•The cost of senior benefits is equal to $10,673 for every non-senior household.
•About 35% of the federal budget is spent on senior benefits, up from 32% in 2004.
Eugene Steuerle, a senior fellow at the non-partisan Urban Institute, notes that the full cost of senior benefits goes beyond Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A complete estimate would include other programs for retirees, such as military and civil servant pensions and medical benefits, he says.
And now, here's the last incredible line from that article:
Economist Dean Baker calls it "granny bashing" to focus on the cost of senior benefits. The elderly paid a designated tax for Social Security and Medicare taxes during their decades of working to support these programs when they retired, says Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic Policy and Research.
It's a tough call - that being which is a more outrageous statement, that from Communist Dean Baker above or the AARP statement that "We have a health care crisis. We don't have an entitlement crisis"???
Personally, I prefer to bash *grandpas* because they at least put up a small fight.
The tragedy is that young people have no clue that they are, and will indefinitely, be working for old people.
There will be no Social Security and probably no Medicare for me when I am 65. My peak earning years will be long past. How high will my quality of life be for my last 3-4 decades on this planet? It's a scary thought.
This is why young people today need to live WELL BELOW their means and save as much dough as they can.
Question - Who's really getting bashed here?
Answer - The young Morons with iPods jammed in their ears.
1 comment:
My sister is a VP of Reimbursement for a multi-hospital medical group in the PNW. They just finished their "pricing" committee meetings for 2009. Some of their treatments and labs are going up 200%!!! What other industry can raise prices by that much and not lose every customer they have? People don't know what they are being charged and don't care because they never see the tag unless they don't have insurance. There's the healthcare crisis.
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