Why was it that Obamacare
had to have a 15-member “death panel” that rations care based on age and
utility to society, a complicated formula that only a bureaucrat can devise,
not a doctor who took a Hippocratic Oath to care for all sick, regardless of
age?
Will a
person past the age of 55 be able to receive expensive treatments such as
chemotherapy for cancer? We do know that anyone over the age of 70 becomes a “unit,”
they are no longer human beings.
Between 1946
and 1964, there were 76 million Americans born, the so-called Baby Boomers.
Four million had died by April 1, 2000. However, the U.S. Census counted 79.6
million due to “net immigration, the number of people coming into the United
States from other countries, minus those moving the other way, outweighing the
number of deaths.” http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2002/JustHowManyBabyBoomersAreThere.aspx
In 2011, the
oldest Baby Boomers turned 65 years old, eligible for Medicare and Social
Security. According to the Pew Research Center, for the next 19 years, 10,000
Baby Boomers will turn 65 every day. By 2030, all members of the Baby Boom
generation would have reached 65. http://www.pewresearch.org/daily-number/baby-boomers-retire/
Every year approximately 3.65
million Baby Boomers receive an average $1,500 in earned Social Security benefits
for a total of $5,475,000,000. The first wave started receiving their payments
in 2011. In 2012, 3.65 more million Baby Boomers became eligible for the same
benefits. In 2013, 3.65 more million Baby Boomers became eligible for $1,500 in
Social Security, bringing the total outlay in three years to $16,525,000,000.
Each year until 2030, $5,475,000,000 will be needed additionally to meet just
the Social Security outlays for Baby Boomers.
Given the excellent state
of medical care in this country at the moment, the nutrition, and the level of
exercise, it is reasonable to assume that Baby Boomers will live 20 years past
the age of 65 if their health care is not rationed.
Meanwhile, the employed labor
force as reported in September 2013 was 144 million, shrunken by 11 million. Numbers
did not specify how many of those employed were part-time and many discouraged
workers were not reported or underreported, having dropped through the cracks
of bureaucracy. http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm
Part-time employment has
been on the rise, prompting some economists to call U.S. “a part-time
employment nation.” We do know that labor force participation has been stuck at
63.2 percent for at least two months. This labor force participation rate is
the “share of the population 16 years and older working or seeking work.” http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
If you divide the Social
Security outlays for Baby Boomers each year for twenty years by the number of
workers, the number is astronomical. It is mathematically impossible for the
current labor force to support that many Baby Boomer retirees and other Social
Security recipients and still have money for everything else in government.
Money paid to current Social
Security recipients comes from the current number of workers and their
employers paying an equal share of Social Security taxes. Self-employed pay
both halves.
The ever-shrinking labor market
will make it more difficult to meet the commitments made to the Baby Boomer
generation and to other recipients. Once 11-12 million illegal aliens are amnestied,
more individuals will be potentially added to the recipient rolls, particular
SSI and disabled.
Is this not painfully
obvious why politicians were eager to give us government socialized medicine,
$719 billion cuts to Medicare over ten years to fund this socialized medicine,
rationing of medical care, and a 15-member bureaucratic “death panel” to
accomplish the rationing?
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