Does the Medicare deduction taken out of my paycheck go into the General fund?

[Horse with no Name]

Just curious because if I am paying years in advance for a program that I am not eligible for until I am 65...then exactly how is this ALSO considered an "entitlement"?

[stevebreeze]

1. no it goes into a separate fund for Medicare.

[indurancevile]

2. The medicare trust funds, when there is a surplus, are borrowed into the general fund, just like ss.

[Horse with no Name]

4. So, they are gone too and they don't want to pay them back? n/t

[indurancevile]

5. There are two Medicare trust funds, hospital insurance & supplementary

medical insurance. The balances in those funds are much smaller than in the SS TF. HI = $271 Billion & SMI = $72 B. They are already being drawn down. To my knowledge there was never any attempt to build up big balances, as was done with SS under Reagan.

I think what a lot of people don't get (because the media & politicians have deliberately obfuscated the facts) is that it's always been the case that excess SS & Medicare tax collections are borrowed by the federal government. There's nothing wrong with this; it's like a cushion.

Both SS & Medicare were set up to be pay as you go: taxes collected from workers were essentially passed through to beneficiaries, and the Trust Funds ideally contained about a one-year cushion (so that, for example, if there were a sudden economic downturn, the gov't could legally make up the drop in collections by redeeming some of the TF).

The problem comes when tax rates are set so high that the Trust Funds grow steadily. This is what happened with SS under Reagan. This sets up a scenario where the extra money in the Treasury can be used to justify tax cuts a/o the balances in the TF grow so large that default becomes attractive.

But no, the problem with Medicare is, as I understand it, simply the rising cost of health care & the ruling class's desire to channel Medicare taxes into private pockets.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Problem with Medicare is the lack of disease prevention. Our seniors would be much healthier

if they had cradle to grave insurance designed to keep them healthy. But the US medical industrial complex makes a lot of money providing high cost care---joint replacements, cardiac stenting---for diseases that never should have happened in the first place. Not just doctors. Lots of medical supply companies, drug companies and hospitals make more money the sicker Medicare patients are allowed to become. And so, they lobby to prevent public health policy that would make us healthier---and cut health care spending by a half. And when you are talking 15% of the GDP, half is a lot. Approximately $2000/person/year is wasted.

[indurancevile]

8. the problem with medicare is that the ruling class wants to get rid of it.

the other problem is that the public/private mix is a license to steal.

unhealthiness isn't what's driving costs.

[mmonk]

3. No.

[indurancevile]

6. Unless there are surplus taxes collected, then yes. Not the case currently,

but has been the case in the past. Which is where the money in the Medicare Trust Funds came from.

[mmonk]

9. The question was as I understood it was does it go directly into the general

revenue fund.