The Public Doesn't Want Medicare Cut. Period.

[Better Believe It]

[Yo_Mama]

1. It doesn't

The public also doesn't want to pay for it.

Therein lies our problem. I remember back during the great HC reform debate in Congress. I thought a public health care system would work a lot better. I recall all the DU threads in which people didn't want to pay for it.

You get two different answers when you ask people if they want something, and then if they are willing to pay so and so much for something. So this poll is meaningless.

[Better Believe It]

3. You're kidding, right? Working people don't object to Medicare taxes to pay for Medicare

"The public doesn't want to pay" for Medicare? Where the hell did you get that idea from?

Do you have any credible data indicating massive opposition to Medicare taxes among ordinary working people?

I don't recall ever hearing anything along those lines from co-workers .... except among a few right-wing nut cases.

[socialist_n_TN]

5. I think this idea comes from the usual suspects.............

Faux Noise, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, etc.

[dkf]

13. Right now premiums can't increase with costs because it can't go up

more than increases in social security payments. Also the true price of part D hasn't been paid for and costs about a trillion over 10 years more than it takes in if I recall correctly. With the increasing cost of medical care plus the retirement of the baby boomers plus the increase in longevity we should be seeing increases in the Medicare taxes and premiums for the next maybe 40 years.

So the question is if we all are okay with increasing the percent we pay for Medicare for the rest of our lives.

The medicare tax and premium and services can't stay as is. It HAS to be touched somehow.

Thinking it can stay unchanged is like thinking health insurance premiums co pays, costs and coverage will not increase a dime ever. How realistic is that?

[Yo_Mama]

15. They don't want to pay the increased taxes necessary

We are currently running negatives on tax income - benefit payments for Medicare. From there over the next ten years, things go to hell in a handbasket very quickly:
https://www.cms.gov/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2010.pdf

Try page 19 and look at the graph. We would have to raise payroll taxes about double just to get to short-term funding levels. Cap is not an issue because there is no Medicare cap. A special "Medicare" tax was imposed for high-income persons (200K up) in the ACA on investment income of 3.8%. However it doesn't get credited to the trust fund.

Also the way this works, unlike Social Security, the general fund pays for portions of Medicare already. So general tax increases are needed.

The easiest way to look at the total picture is to look at percent of GDP. In the year 2000, we spent less than 2.5% of GDP on Medicare. In 2010, it increased over a percentage point to about 3.6%. By 2020 it is supposed to be about 4%. By 2030 spending is supposed to be about 5% (more than double).

What this means in taxes is pretty steep. For example, 2010 GDP nominal was 14.6 trillion. 3.5% of that (we are not paying for it, we are borrowing the money) is 511 billion. 5% is 730 billion. Compare that to 2000's approximately 365 billion. Another source of required tax increases is that many of the poorer elderly, or elderly in nursing homes, also receive Medicaid to cover either the Medicare 20% payments, premiums or the cost of longer-term nursing home care. Taxes need to be raised to pay for that spending.

This assumes, btw, that the scheduled drops in Medicare reimbursements go into effect, and absolutely no one believes they will. If they did, a lot of Medicare patients wouldn't get medical services which is just another form of the Ryan plan.

Another way to look at this is intuitively easier. You figure the Medicare HI cost per beneficiary and allocate by worker/beneficiary ratio.

So for example:
In 2010 about 47 million people were covered by Medicare part A. In 2000 39,257 people were. In 2020, the estimate is 63,000, and in 2030 the estimate is 80,000.

In 2000, there were 3.4 workers per retiree. In 2010, there were 3. By 2030, we expect that to go to no more than 2.3. The 2010 premium for medicare was $461 a month or $5,532 a year.

So, roughly:
2000 worker's annual share = $1,627 or $135 a month.
2010 worker's annual share = $1,844 or $153 a month.
2030 worker's annual share = $2,405 or $200 a month.

This presumes no real rise in medical costs. There are other per-beneficiary costs for SMI (parts B, C & D), but this shows how quickly it escalates.

Another way to look at it is that the average household will need to pay the Medicare premium for one retiree, as well as their own insurance premiums. Fortunately there is no wage cap and ACA also added a high-income extra Medicare tax of 0.9% which starts in 2013, so higher income households pick up a burden proportionate to their income.

FICA rates also need to go up. For a lot of lower income households, an increase of federal tax burden of 5% is going to be brutal.

[Lasher]

7. It's all about the way the issue is framed.

People hate taxes. People like domestic social programs. Spending and tax cuts are always a matter of priorities.

Ask people if they are in favor of extending the Bush tax cuts if a substantial increase in the national debt will result. Ask them if they would rather keep Social Security as we now know it, or continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ask them if they think we should increase defense spending yet again this year if it means thousands more Americans will die because we'll have to cut back on Medicare and Medicaid.

This type of framing, rare by no accident in our political discourse, would produce a more realistic poll result than, 'Are you in favor of raising taxes?'

[Better Believe It]

10. How about this for framing? Do you want to cut taxes so that we can end Social Security, Medicare

[Lasher]

11. That's just the way it should be put to the American people.

But we'll never see it laid out that way on CNN.

[gratuitous]

2. So, the Wise Men of Washington hear "Medicare" and "cut"

Well, okay. We don't really want to cut Medicare, but the people have spoken! It's like that Far Side cartoon between "What we say" and "What dogs hear." Blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah Ginger blah blah blah blah. Blah blah?

[Lasher]

8. One of my favorite Farsides

[Poboy]

4. The public actually wants Medicare for ALL.

[caledesi]

9. Yep P! nt

[socialist_n_TN]

6. And ANOTHER good leftish idea ...........

that the public OVERWHELMINGLY supports will go in the circular file.

Folks they don't LISTEN to the American public anymore. It's obvious they will ignore us and listen to their capitalist bosses. Toadies for the wealthy.

[FLAprogressive]

12. That's OK because the Beltway Conventional Wisdom is is that Medicare is a problem. Suck it old

people!

[TheWebHead]

14. in fairness

if there was a poll asking if they'd like to reduce the national debt by doing an across the board tax increase, I suspect there would be a similar reaction. Having accumulated $15 trillion in debt and $1+ trillion deficits as far as the eye can see carries enormous fiscal consequences to alleviate, far more than what can be remedied with by taxing the rich, cutting defense or eliminating waste fraud and abuse. Even Ryan's plan adds to the debt. There's no gun forcing other countries or individuals to continue to purchase U.S. debt, so something's gonna have to be done and as polls correctly suggest, very few are going to like the consequences.