Well its also peoples fault as well. To solely depend on the government for everything is wrong. It was designed to be a supplement just as Social Security. Now everybody is banking on to live off it alone. Wrong answer...Invest, save, etc to retirement. Get the nest egg built because that is the only thing you can count on.

Medicare and social security, both of them the government has not been good steward with our money, and both needs to be scraped. Let the people invest there own money

Make it a law that current money they are taking out now, you must invest that money in your own retirement and a health saving account, it’ yours 100% and not the government. We are adults, if you keep treating people like kids that what your going to get

Why is it that the government can make a deal with taxpayers, with facts that clearly show the deal they made will not work, and in the end, we end up paying the bills, but when government makes a deal with government workers that is completely unsustainable, we have to keep that bargain?

I am beyond furious to learn of all the sweetheart fat retirement / benefits deals made out here in CA, and now the UC executives are not happy with their $180k retirement pay so they are suing for $300k annual pensions.

These good for nothing government pukes need to all be sent packing. These ridiculous / fraudulent deals made by our irresponsible government need to be voided, realistic deals put in their place, with annual adjustments up/down based on actual funding (revenue to the government, return on investments, you know, what all the rest of us must rely on) as these fairytale exec jobs with the government and the union robbery IS destroying the fabric of our nation, and dooming our cities and states to bankruptcy.

I think this is a red herring. We pay health insurance premiums throughout our life, but that doesn't cover the cost of our healthcare, either. The only answer is single-payor national health.

If you think the current Ponzi schemes of SS and Medicare are bad, imagine a single-payer national health care scheme.

A single-payer national health care plan can only work by: 1) robbing future generations to pay for the current one (Ponzi) or 2) redistribution of wealth. Make the rich and/or healthy pay for the poor and/or unhealthy.

Neither option is fair and both lack any requirement for personal responsibility.

The Death Panels to encourage Euthanasia have happened. They are real for everyone, not just seniors. They were put back into Obamacare as announced on Christmas day!

Quote: In Catron's words: "A year of perfect health, for example, is given a value of 1.0 while a year of sub-optimum health is rated between 0 and 1. If you are confined to a wheelchair, a year of your life might be valued at half that of your ambulatory neighbor. If you are blind or deaf, you also score low. All that remains is to assign a specific dollar value to the QALY and, voilà, your life has a price tag."

Medical care will be rationed or cut off based on what the price tag on your life is as valued by the government.

Do you still like Obamacare?

Friends:

Do the math. When these programs were established folks had the courtesy to die a lot younger, however with great medical attention offered at low cost just when they are getting older and sicker, they can last for decades longer, and thus keep receiving great medical attention, that makes them last even longer which causes even more medical expenses....you get the picture.

Nothing wrong with living forever, but who is going to pay for the privilege?

Just a clue, never let politicians handle your finances!

Good Luck, and if you are 55 years old or younger you better get real busy with a personal retirement program that isn't a bunch of bull, you will need to cover most or all of your retirement expenses and medical soon! I recommend a minimum of $2 million per person as the least buy in for an okay retirement that does not rely on the poorly run government programs, especially those retirement plans for government workers that are bankrupting cities; counties; and states nationwide right now. Get out of bonds while you can, these are going to blow all to hell soon!

getalifevirginia

The Death Panels to encourage Euthanasia have happened. They are real for everyone, not just seniors. They were put back into Obamacare as announced on Christmas day!

Quote: In Catron's words: "A year of perfect health, for example, is given a value of 1.0 while a year of sub-optimum health is rated between 0 and 1. If you are confined to a wheelchair, a year of your life might be valued at half that of your ambulatory neighbor. If you are blind or deaf, you also score low. All that remains is to assign a specific dollar value to the QALY and, voilà, your life has a price tag."

Medical care will be rationed or cut off based on what the price tag on your life is as valued by the government.

Do you still like Obamacare?

I never liked it, but it isn't too much different than what we have today. The incentive for both the government and private insurers is the same, to pay out as little as they can at the expense of the patient. Health insurance companies put a price on life and I don't read any complaints from you here. Health care is already rationed out according to who has the means to pay. So a 95 year old rich man can get a doctor's attention before a 5 year old kid who had the "misfortune" of being born to a poor family. The only people that really care that you live are (hopefully) your family and friends.

Didn't they put that Madoff fellow in prison for running a ponzi scheme like this? Seems to me, the best thing to do is to not invest in ponzi schemes, even the ones run by the government.

Jaeger Dean, I've heard all of the arguments against a single payer health care system. And millionaires like Rush are always bringing up the countries in which it does not work well. But here are some things that are just as true: Not one country with a single payer system has ever voted it out. And single payer systems work well in countries like Germany and the Scandinavian countries. Also the reason the two single payer systems in the US -- medicare and medicaid -- are so expensive is that they care for people at a time in their lives when medical expenses are highest -- at the beginning and at the end of life. If everyone were included then the cost per patient would be lowered because it would not just cover those with the highest medical expenses and the real drivers of healthcare costs, the insurance companies, would be history.

And Obama tries to fix it, and all of you little girls complain about how the government is taking over your lives. Idiots. You are little babies who don't know what you want and blame everyone else for your miserable lives.

dnimerick - I live in Germany for a good part of every year. The taxes are ridiculous. Income tax starts at 48% and they have a 19% VAT. Fuel prices are over $9.00 a gallon because of taxes. Over half of your income goes to the government.

Do you want to live like that?

Why don't we all just quit working, quit paying taxes, go on welfare, and let the government support us along with the other half of the population. Let's see how long that system works.

jager dean tells us that taxes are so high in Germany but don't say anything about ours and the unbelievable cost of being the worlds policemen

All single payer systems work better than the for profit system that we are living and dying with

bopdaddytoo

Are you a Communist? sure sound that way tell me how prifit sysem is wrong?

jager dean is absolutely right and and I know people in Ireland that are going to move because their healthcare is abysmal and because they have the single payer system so there is no other option, you can't even pay extra for better care! Now that the insurance companies have gotten rid of any competition, they are raising the rates by 59% in California. Serves those dummies right for voting Pelosi.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/07/news/companies/California_blue_shield_rate_hike/index.htm?section=money_mostpopular&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_mostpopular+%28Most+Popular%29

And TV is trying to get seniors to BUY something, just like the rest of us are brainwashed. It is damned near impossible to get Medicare to pay for an electric cart - the commercials are BS and are cited in the Medicare documentation as examples of fraud. www.medicare.gov/Publications/Pubs/pdf/11046.pdf

Fraud is certainly an issue with Medicare but it is the need for and rapidly rising costs that are going to bankrupt it.

yes Blutone, the cost of healthcare is off the chain. I know that by virture of what healthcare professionals do, that they should have substantial income, but everyone else has to eat too. I just got a script for a bacterial infection in my stomach. I was prescribed 4 med scripts totaling a whopping $340.00 for 7 days. Ludicrious! I had coupons from my doc and my health ins from work covered the meds and medicare covered the doc's visit. (I only have part A until I retire). I was out of pocket $21 but that bill was footed by my ins company and medicare. Some have medicare part A , B and C. With these prices for Docs visits, prescript drugs, and hospital care, I can see why medicare is going broke, the system is paying out way too much money. Fraud and unnecessary tests are killing a much needed system.

I agree with the vast majority in this post. Something needs to be done but it seems that it's always us little guys who bear the costs. The Washington elite who have sat in their seats in both houses of Congress and the Presidency for the past 30 years have done little to protect this country's people economically. Just look at the energy issue. We've been feeding our enemies for decades by sending our petro dollars to the Middle East and elsewhere for too long. Who wants it that way? Big oil wants it that way. The article tells us that there are less people paying into the system. An aging country accounts for some of that but when Caterpillar sends more and more jobs to Germany to build bulldozers and Dell computer has thousands of call center jobs outsourced to India and on and on, who's paying into Social Security and Medicare? The Germans aren't and the Indians certainly aren't. You all can thank your captive politicians for the fact that this country has lost millions and millions of good paying jobs to "Globalization." Globalization my azz, it's simple corporate greed. The jobs left in this country pay a lot less per-capita than they ever used to thanks to corporate greed and help from YOUR law makers in Washington. Less pay means less taxes paid by fewer workers.

yes Blutone, the cost of healthcare is off the chain. I know that by virture of what healthcare professionals do, that they should have substantial income, but everyone else has to eat too. I just got a script for a bacterial infection in my stomach. I was prescribed 4 med scripts totaling a whopping $340.00 for 7 days. Ludicrious! I

Because we are the fools that pay for drug testing and trials,while the rest of the world doesnt..

Assuming they put $2850 per year at the beginning of each year into a 5% investment they would have $361,494 at the end of 40 years.

Yeah this is what I was thinking as well. They don't say whether this is adjusted inflation dollars either. If someone pays in 114,000 over their lifetime that money is worth more than when they start pulling it out of the system. Unless they're saying inflation adjusted it's 3 to 1 pulling out versus putting in.

$114,000 wouldn't pay for heart by-pass surgery and that is one common surgery for retirees.

One surgery will blow the lifetime of contributions, without considering any other medical needs.

The end result of this is the medical field itself will need to be the ones to step up and find ways to save money or accept less money to care for patients.

I feel the problem here is the excessive costs for surgeries.

None of us have the answers, but if a heart operation which is several hours of labor / capital time in a hospital comes close to a $100,000 those entities ( doctors, hospitals ) should ask themselves have they priced their services past their clients ability to pay.

There is an analogy I'm alluding too...it's called killing the 'golden goose' for the 'golden eggs.'

Bobby Gee - You are right on target with your truthful analysis! The fact that there is a deficiency in any of these Gov't programs is found in the mismanagement and outright theft of our funds by our Gov't, period.

If we had been allowed to set aside these funds for ourselves, in an insured fund that was invested in risk free investments we would all be better off. So much for relying on the Gov't to be any kind of steward of our money.

This is a source for Revolution. Never in History has there been such an outrageous theft by a Gov't from it's People!!!!!!

There is no "rate of return" in a Ponzi scheme. All the money that is taken in from current investors is used to pay the previous investor.

The only cure is to limit payouts to the previous investors or to increase the required investment by the current ones. Neither will likely happen. Collapse is inevitable.

Im sure with WB donating 99% of his wealth away leaving him with hundreds of millions still left (and growing) he will not be using medicare and SS any time soon.

norm isn't just talking about Warren Buffet. he's talking about people like my grandmother. she worked a part time job for about a year and a half after high school, then got married and hasn't worked since. she is also a millionaire several times over, through careful saving, wise investing, and the fact that my grandpa had a good job that paid well. now she is 91, her income from her investments is nearly $100k a year, yet she bitches about how much money they take from her SS check every month to pay for her Medicare! I can't even afford insurance at all, despite a college degree and hard work. those are the kind of people who don't need Social Security, paid little into it themselves, but line up at the trough for decades to get their handout. and then have the nerve to bitch about the health care bill, or people on welfare! give me a break! there isn't any difference.

Something tells me that Allie22's grandmother isn't going to leave her anything if she knows how her granddaughter really feels about her.

how I really feel about her is that I love her dearly. she is my grandma, duh! but loving someone and being loved by them in return doesn't mean that you will always agree on everything or march in lockstep.

my comment was to the effect that there are many, many people of her generation who are in her circumstance, that are receiving the benefit of a public welfare program which they paid very little into. a public welfare program that will likely not be around to benefit people of my generation, who are paying into it every week right now. the social security administration is kind enough to send me a statement every year, reminding me that I will never ever get to take out more in payments than I have paid in to them. but the money they get from my check and my employer will likely not be there for me to take out, because it will be used up by the looming glut of baby boomers.

but goUSA, if you are so smug about it, maybe you should call up my grandma and rat me out. will that make you feel better?

Allie22,

I hear the same thing from many seniors, though not as well off as your granmother - they are in fine shape. Living in lifecare communities, with hundreds of thousands in the bank and complaining that there was no COLA to SS this year and the co-pays with Medicare are going up. I have little sympathy. My own mother was a nursing home resident for 20 months before her death and spent down everything she had -which is the way it should be.

allie22: I don't know who you are, and even if I did, your family affairs are yours and yours alone. I wasn't being smug, just pointing out that you were ragging on your grandmother.

Sadly, this isn't all that uncommon. If you walk into just about any casino they are packed with blue haired old ladies pumping buckets full of money into the slot machines. If my memory is correct, people over 65 comprise about 12 or 13% of the population & control over 40% of the wealth, and yet your waitress is subsidizing their healthcare & pocketbook while she probably can't afford healthcare for herself.

I'm 55 and I knew 30 years ago this system was unsustainable so I've been saving for retirement. The government penalizes you for doing so to some extent but it beats the hell out of starving when the whole system comes falling down.

The statistic I read is that the elderly comprise 20% of the population yet control 80% of the wealth.

Receiving benefits from any tax-supported program should be contingent on income and property, period. The fact that these programs allow ALL individuals to be automatic beneficiaries simply because the age of 65 has been attained is fiscally unsound and patently unfair.

A rich 20 year old cannot receive welfare, nor should he. Why should a rich 70 year old? And don't say it's because the 70 year old paid taxes. If she's a lady who married her high school sweetheart and never worked a day outside of the home her life, she never paid taxes. But if she's poor, I don't begrudge her her Medicare. If she's rich, I do! I'm a single mom who could not afford the $350 a month it would have cost to add my kids to the health insurance provided to me at work. Since I had dependents and didn't earn a huge amount, I didn't pay federal income tax. But for the year before I was laid off I paid $350 a month to Social Security and Medicare. Call a tax a tax! If the government takes it from paycheck and I have no say in it it's a tax, not an ENTITLEMENT. Why should rich retirees (and some who NEVER worked) get free healthcare when children can't? Sadly, because they feel entitled.

So the old-fashioned stay at home mom is now another class that can be freely attacked?

I have news for you - my dad paid a pile of money to our filthy crooked government, and died 18 months after he retired. That my mom's basic needs were supported through the hard work my dad did is neither unfair or any of the other ridiculous nonsense some of you are trying to make it out to be.

It was a different time, and the government back then actually took care of the cost curve - something in the last 30 years they clearly have not done.

If you think that the old rich folks are the problem, you again are way off base. The problem is out of control government spending, every department in government overrun with incompetence, mismanagement, bloated salaries and benefits and redundancies, along with a military that is about 50% too large and about 80% too involved in affairs that are none of our business.

Complain all you want about old folks, but the problem is the irresponsible government overspending more than a Trillion a year, along with making promises and adding debt at criminal speed that dwarf anything the rich elderly could spend in the next 50 years.

Paul F, Thank you for describing the REAL problem.

Yes, I totally agree with Paul F.

Domestic Engineers (aka: housewives) do contribute significantly to the bottom line. They maintain the household, and hopefully raise children who then go on to become valuable contributors to society.

It has nothing at all to do with wasteful government spending (although there is plenty of that). The system was designed to fail, not intentionally, but inevitably. Medicare and SS are "pay as you go" systems (Ponzi). As long as you have more contributors than receivers, it works fine. If you have 1 collecting but 100 contributing, all is good. That is what we had when the Boomers were paying for the previous generations.

When you have fewer contributors and more receivers, the system has to fail. All the Boomers are starting to collect, but we have a lot less contributors. Almost to the point of being only 2 contributors for each receiver.

Things might have worked out if the excess funds that were collected in the beginning were held for future generations, but they weren't. They were spent by mismanagement and an ever increasing list of social programs that sucked off the funds. That is over and done with now. We can't change the past.

Is therehope for the system in the future? NO! It is impossible. We either have to drastically cut the spending (cut entitlements and programs) or increase the taxes on future generations.

Neither will happen. The system will fail.

PaulF,

great points, however, who elects the people that run the government? if Americans wanted a smaller, less invovled military we would have one but no one votes for the candidates that are weak on defense. you have the government you deserve.

@Paul and others:

A rich 20 year old cannot receive welfare, nor should he. Why should a rich 70 year old?

Apparently you did not read my post carefully. The actual POINT I was making is this: rich people do not need to receive entitlements, regardless of their age.

My only reference to the lady who married her high school sweetheart (hardly a derogatory description) and worked in the home but not outside of it, was to point out that she personally did not pay taxes. I wrote about the irony of the fact that my $350 per month "tax" was going to pay for the free health care of RICH elderly people (including my 65 year old millionaire BOSS at the time), while at the same time my own children went without health insurance because of the current tax laws. I don't begrudge the elderly, and I specifically STATED that.

I think the elderly would not begrudge allowing children to have health insurance if they thought of them as their own grandchildren. And if they were aware that Medicare is not as solvent as they think it is, perhaps they would agree that Warren Buffet really doesn't really need free health care, after all. Remember, Warren Buffet himself pointed out that his own secretary paid more income tax than he does, due to all of the shelters, breaks and loopholes the extremely wealth enjoy. At our expense.

Spot On! I paid into the system and now that I am receiving Medicare I am supposed to feel guilty and give up some benefits?
Throw the Bums out!

In 1983 Congress realized that there was going to be a very large number of people retiring in a short time period. ( the baby boomers ) It was at this time the amount of social security taxes withheld from our paychecks was doubled , so there would be no shortage. DO NOT BLAME ME IF CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENTS STOLE FROM THE SOCIAL SECURITY TRUST!!!

In 1966 my parents bought a home for 29,000. In 2002 they sold it for $385,000. They put there money to work. The government was broke in 66 Johnson was inthe white house and the great society was born. You folks who chose a different road, a different lifestyle now want another free ride? Keep on smokin your bongs, strutting your trash and keep on dreaming. The President and the destructionist have been put out to pasture by the obstructionist.

chris-1189701, do you think the boomer generation will see the same return on investment your parents saw? Think again. My MIL did the same thing and she invested all the proceeds and she, at 85, is very well-off. The same cannot be said for those after the meltdown - we are 10+ years away from real estate values returning to 2006 levels. That is part of the problem, real estate has been overvalued for at least a decade.

Most senior citizens have several pre-existing conditions and can't get insurance at any price from the greedy, for-profit health insurance companies whose business mission is to economically rape American consumers. That's why Medicare was proposed and passed in the the 1960's. There were seniors who couldn't get insurance and were dying from lack of medical care. There were those then--mostly Republicans (who bitterly fought the Medicare legislation)--as there are those today--mostly Republicans--who said "Well, tough luck, just let'em die." I was 16 years old when Medicare passed and remember it well because my father was a hospital administrator at a small county hospital. It helped the hospital, which had been providing uncompensated care to many of the poor elderly, use those funds for other needed things, such as new equipment and additional nursing staff.

No one has pushed eliminating Medicare or SS for those who are currently enrolled in those programs or even for those who are close to reaching retirement age. What I have read advocates for allowing people under 30 to opt out and find there own solutions to late in life problems.

Of course they don't!! As many are saying, the elderly foolishly believe they have paid their fair share and are getting what's due them....My grandparents did until I had to set them straight that they are basing their opinions on 1960's healthcare costs....The Dems need to push HARD facts at people so they can see what's REALLY going on!!

This is not a Democrat vs Republican issue. It is a complex financial issue. The problem is that our elected officials, both democrats and republicans, are not financial experts. They govern on emotion and the need to get elected. They give more and more entitlements to the public in order to stay in power.

Do you really think any of them actually have the knowledge or training to see the future implications of what they are doing now?

AS an example, Wyoming has a senator that is a doctor. He is probably an honorable man and a good doctor. It doesn't matter whether he is a dem or a repub. He was elected because the people were tired of typical politicians. That sound great, but would you go to a trained doctor to have your taxes done? Why would you want your doctor writing tax law or negotiating trade laws? That isn't his forte. I wouldn't want a economist doing heart surgery on my son.

The majority of our government is run by people that are out of their field fo training. Is there any wonder why we are in the mess that we are in?

FDR started FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) to fund the retirement years of the citizens, and made in manitory. We must be part of the "insurance" run by the government, and not we are not to get the coverage we have paid. FDR set a top dollar amount to be paid and a max. amount of earnings to be taxed as the money was to be invested. No investment and no responsibility for the theft of our money. If an insurance company tried to reneg on the "contract" for the payment on the policy they sold, there would be hell to pay. This program was not intended to be a worker pay for the retired, only the likes of Obama and the libs would try to promote this. We have been forced to buy the government insurance and we may see nothing because of theft by the people in charge. Every elected federal official should be arrested and have all their assets taken via RICO act. Organized crime (US Government) has stolen our retirement while they live the life of Riley. Fire every politician and demand the return of our money from all the politicians , past and current, as they are the thieves that are harming the American seniors and all working Americans.

DJ,

Do you think they are going to bite the hand that feeds them. Not once during the debates on government run healthcare was the issue of obscene healthcare costs discussed and the possibility of regulating those costs. That would go a long way in fixing the ills of our healthcare system.

I agree. Wish I had the answer. Maybe one day, Healthcare will become the next "Mortgage Meltdow" before anyone really acts.

I think when these programs were adopted, the thought was that there would be continued growth in the population (Remember - Baby Boomers were just growing up) that would continue to pay in to these programs. Many of the politicians were products of the Great Depression and knew what it was like to have the carpet pulled out from under them with nothing to rely on.

This is the same principle Madoff ran his ponzi schemes. Assuming population growth would continue and governenment revenues would always increase enough that paying for this with current inflows would never be a problem. Both Madoff and the government assumptions are turning out to be wrong.

Don - Finally, someone that gets the problem.

Same here with my parents.

Exactly Raven. But the 'Powers to Be" dont want to answer that simple question.

It went into the SS and Medicare fund. Your parents didn't have individual accounts where the funds were set aside just for them. No one does. In fact, the funds they put in were spent years ago, while they were still working. The funds you put in now would be used to pay for them if they were still alive.

It is not a secret and there is no mystery involved.

jaiger, please read and understand the actual act that started the Social Security system. Americans were and are forced (required) to but the insurance for retirement and your government stole all the money and did not use for the purpose the law required. The funds put in by my parents and i have inserted since 1963 were credited to them and me, however, there has not been a single dollar invested to fund the retirement of the seniors. Wake up and realize your government has stolen you money and the money of your parents.

Ray - I agree the government stole the money in the form of a Ponzi scheme, but there is and never was a funded account set up in any individuals name. Records were and are kept recording you contribution, but none of the funds were ever set aside in your name. If what you are suggesting were true, you would be entitled to get back what you contributed plus interest. Those that didn't contribute would get nothing. Neither is true.

It is all a scam and we lose.

Note to The Raven: Those who want to end Medicare and Social Security don't wan't to be bothered with facts like these (many pay into the system for years and die before collecting any benefits). They want to stay on the "Ponzi scheme" message and other misleading horsehockey.

You also fail to factor in the value of money - had his contributions been earning during those years he paid in, the sum would have been much more than these quotes being tossed around.

That, and the reality that any kind of insurance is not a $1 in $1 out -we all know that some pay and never use or use little, some pay and use a lot, and the smart people who figure out these rates factor in the averages so that we should break even at the end of the day.

That our irresponsible government has spent this money rather than keeping these accounts outside of the general fund only made all of this a bigger problem. The Medicare/SS problem is GOVERNMENT irresponsibility, fraud, and incompetence.

Hopefully we educate the current generation to take care of themselves, and find ways to manage their health outside of the main stream healtcare system, as it's costs have been inflated just like higher education through government involvement, and the false economies created for these segments.

Within 3 years it is going to be hard to find a doctor who accepts Medicare because the reimbursement has not changed in 12 years and they will not and cannot see patients for free or at a financial loss.

Which is the reason for medical costs going up so fast. A medical care provider has to bring in enough cash to pay his expenses to keep his staff paid and his office open. When Medicare slashes what they will pay for an office visit or procedure the doctor raises his fees knowing what percentage of it will be paid by Medicare or insurance. Then the person without insurance goes to the doctor and is billed what they bill Medicare or insurance which is probably more than 50% more than what they really need to keep their office open. In other words if a surgeon expects to be paid $1000 for a surgical procedure they have to bill Medicare and insurance probably close to $10,000 for that procedure. That's the reason for the $10 Tylenol, etc.

It's all really a game that they have all learned how to play and we are all the losers of that game.

So, ColoradoBob, you would rather "bet" your health care savings on the stock market??? I think you might make a better return on your investment if you bought lottery tickets!!! When one man in one day can "crash" the market just to see if he can, your money is NOT safe!! When grade AA mortage backed securities can be monkeyed around with by banks you really think that your money is safe??

The government is alot safer than the stock market!! I have know dozens of people who lost nearly everything because they invested in "safe" low risk investments.

Actually, I never mentioned the stock market. I mentioned a "savings account". I was commenting on the article and the missing/misrepresented amounts and facts. And yes I'm confident in my own ability and I trust myself more than I trust the wisdom of a few bureaucrats who reside in Washington, D.C. So if you think I misstated something, go ahead and present your case.

Sorry Colorado, but your numbers are factually wrong, as are your assumptions. When you start throwing around numbers like this, you become part of the problem, and not the solution, because other people will believe your numbers without doing any of their own fact checking.

1. the matching payments were never yours. Never Ever!

2. 44 years ago, Social Security/Medicare amounted to 4.2%, and your Social Security income was $6600, which was a very nice wage back then. The numbers you throw out assume $89,000 income for each year for the last 44 years, and that $89,000 was 100% Social Security eligible. That's completely specious! (look it up)

3. Nobody ever kept you from saving an additional 10-15% of your salary and getting 4% compounded for 44 years ... except you.

4. Just for fun sake, assume you took the SocialSecurity/Medicare that you payed to the government for the last 44 years (again, assuming you payed at the maximum level, which by-the-way, very few people did) ... and invested it at 4% compounded for 44 years, you would have $298,582.69 at the end of 2010.

5. I have Social Security/Medicare actuarial (look it up) experience Colorado, and I have been receiving both for the past 10 years. It gets very annoying when I see opinion stated as fact, as in your post. That's too bad .... for all of us.

frav: Most responsible people do save 10-15% of their income. And they should be able to save more of their incomes pre-tax.

frav- Looks to me like YOU'RE the one making some incorrect assumptions.

1) While the matching payments may not have been Colorado's, they DO go into a business's calculations when they figure out how much it costs to hire an employee. There have been an huge number of news articles about employees wages not having kept up with inflation for the past 30 years or so. That's because the money went to rising healthcare costs & government mandated contributions (FICA,unemployment, etc) & not to the employee.

2) In my case, I HAVE been saving 15 to 20% of my earnings for the past 31 years and, if I had a choice, I would have added the 13.2% the government took from me to that total and would be in far better shape financially. Even with the market downturn a few years ago I have turned my savings into a $1 million plus nest egg by getting a lot better returns than the 4% you mention.

You can feel free to rely on social security. Me, I just wish I had had the option to say: "Thanks, but no thanks." and keep my money.

Show me a bank giving 4% on a savings account right now. I just did a google search and I'm seeing 1.0 - 2.0% right now.

Maybe I should invest my money in Wall Street. We know that is an honest game now don't we...

Assuming a couple made $89,000 each year for the past 44 years is a little off the wall. Any couple making $89,000 44 years ago would have been considered very well off by most people's standards at that time, and if they were making that much money at that time there is no reason they should not have invested and saved a huge amount of it and should have no complaints about their benefits today.

By my math 44 years ago it was 1966. My husband was a postal worker and was bringing home $185.00 every 2 weeks. As for us, we weren't able to save much, we had 4 small children as did most of the people he worked with. So throwing around numbers unless you really know what you're talking about is nothing more than silly talk. Many people worked every single day plus all the overtime they could get and never even dreamed of ever making that kind of money which is the reason there are so many poor seniors today. Many young people are in the same situation today, they work hard every day and many even have college degrees but are in jobs that are considered 'honorable' (like teachers for instance) but don't pay well. It upsets me seeing these sites where people who have less are called lazy and refuse to work. It's far from the truth for most people who find themselves at the bottom rung of the income ladder.

If all the money taken from my paycheck and my employer was forced to match was put into a simple savings account I would not need to have the false government social security. The ability to have a saving retirement fund is a recent option and not able to the average citizen. Understand the Government takes over 15% (15.3)and requires your employer to match this amount. Only the top 10% wage earners reach the annual earnings to stop paying. 30.6 % of your earnings into a simple savings would give the person at retirement much more than we hope to see today. Retirement costs are the result of the lawyers and congress placing blame on others. If a lawyer were sued as often as the DR. for their malpractice we would have lower medical costs and fewer lawyers stealing reputations of the honest citizen.

If we suspended the licenses of incompetent doctors, instead of suing them for malpractice, then we'd weed out the bad ones and not punish the good ones.

John McCain's income is a matter of public record. His household wealth belongs to his wife. He earned his military retirement. He also paid into the system his whole life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with his receiving what is his to begin with.

Social Security was implemented to end poverty among the elderly, not to be pocket change for the wealthy 65+.

John McCain willl receive retirement funds from the Government's retirement system and from the Military as was mentioned. Furthermore, SS payments are capped. I believe it is somewhere between $2200 and $2300 a month.

The fact remains that he doesn't need the money. Anyone not needing the money should not take it. And I don't mean to pick on John McCain, when the time comes for any millionaire or billionaire they should refuse it. How about Kerry from Massachusetts, I say it collects it. That's how the wealthy stay wealthy.

If they are forced to pay into the system, then they should be able to receive the benefits. That is the way the law was written. It was never supposed to be means tested. If so, then it would be welfare.

My point exactly, goUSA!

If you are going to remove the cap from the amount paid in yearly are you going to also remove it from the payments at retirement? If you have to pay in say 50k a year it seems a little unfair that you can only collect 20k a year.

You are correct. Medicare premiums are deducted from SS checks and if a person is still earning money, taxes are paid on that as well.

Yep and I pay in a LOT more than I use.