Social Security Payments to be Cut by Not Being Increased
Article on SS Payments:
So you receive SS benefits and also pay for Medicare Part D. Because you get no COLA and because Part D premiums are increasing, somehow this equates to a benefit cut. Don’t factor in that just about everything is going down in price due to a recession, except healthcare coverage.
Last I remember, Part D was a brand new and certainly optional entitlement program as of about seven years ago. So you create this optional entitlement program that people have to pay a negligible amount to enroll in, and when premiums go up but your SS benefits don’t, folks bitch about it.
It gets worse when you hear the Democrat plan to deal with it:
A $2T deficit this year projected. The middle of a recession where almost 10% of Americans are out of work. And this Democrat is bitching because a government entitlement program doesn’t increase payouts because there is no overall inflation due to falling energy prices and another government entitlement program raises premiums because healthcare costs are rising. Oh, yeah, and the answer is to raise SS taxes, that are also how Obama is going to solve the Healthcare and SS crisis as it is.
For once, I am fully with Democrats on their usual stance of “Blame Bush”. See, it was Bush that created the brand new entitlement program that now less than a decade later is causing these sorts of problems. This is what happens when you expand government and it is made all the worse when Republicans lose their focus and grow government because if Republicans are willing to grow government, Democrats will want to grow government more than the Republicans. Now you see that Part D was not enough for Dems. And Bush is behind this problem, fair and square.
WASHINGTON - Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise.
The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won’t be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn’t happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.
By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly.
“I will promise you, they count on that COLA,” said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who now heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “To some people, it might not be a big deal. But to seniors, especially with their health care costs, it is a big deal.”
Cost of living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year, largely because energy prices are below 2008 levels.
So you receive SS benefits and also pay for Medicare Part D. Because you get no COLA and because Part D premiums are increasing, somehow this equates to a benefit cut. Don’t factor in that just about everything is going down in price due to a recession, except healthcare coverage.
Last I remember, Part D was a brand new and certainly optional entitlement program as of about seven years ago. So you create this optional entitlement program that people have to pay a negligible amount to enroll in, and when premiums go up but your SS benefits don’t, folks bitch about it.
It gets worse when you hear the Democrat plan to deal with it:
Kennelly’s group wants Congress to increase Social Security benefits next year, even though the formula doesn’t call for it. She would like to see either a 1 percent increase in monthly payments or a one-time payment of $150.
The cost of a one-time payment, a little less than $8 billion, could be covered by increasing the amount of income subjected to Social Security taxes, Kennelly said. Workers only pay Social Security taxes on the first $106,800 of income, a limit that rises each year with the average national wage.
But the limit only increases if monthly benefits increase.
A $2T deficit this year projected. The middle of a recession where almost 10% of Americans are out of work. And this Democrat is bitching because a government entitlement program doesn’t increase payouts because there is no overall inflation due to falling energy prices and another government entitlement program raises premiums because healthcare costs are rising. Oh, yeah, and the answer is to raise SS taxes, that are also how Obama is going to solve the Healthcare and SS crisis as it is.
For once, I am fully with Democrats on their usual stance of “Blame Bush”. See, it was Bush that created the brand new entitlement program that now less than a decade later is causing these sorts of problems. This is what happens when you expand government and it is made all the worse when Republicans lose their focus and grow government because if Republicans are willing to grow government, Democrats will want to grow government more than the Republicans. Now you see that Part D was not enough for Dems. And Bush is behind this problem, fair and square.
