More Inconvenient Truths or Mitch McConnell is a Whining Jackass

        More Inconvenient Truths or why Mitch
             Mcconnell is a Whining Jackass

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mitch-mcconnell-calls-to-cut-social-security-medicare/ar-BBOtGyE

       The issue here (cutting SS and/or Medicare) is far more complicated that either side is willing to discuss, and Democrats are as culpable as Republicans. The difference, such as it is, revolves around how to do what should have been done starting in the 1950s.

Table 1: Life Expectancy for Social Security

Table 1: Life Expectancy for Social Security
Year Cohort Turned 65	Percentage of Population Surviving from Age 21 to Age 65		Average Remaining Life Expectancy for Those Surviving to Age 65
	Male	Female	Male	Female
1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990	53.9 56.2 60.1 63.7 67.8 72.3	60.6 65.5 71.3 76.9 80.9 83.6	12.7 13.1 13.2 13.8 14.6 15.3	14.7 16.2 17.4 18.6 19.1 19.6

       The nature of the real issue here is obvious from the table above. Clearly, as incepted, most Americans would not live to collect Social Security. This wasn’t part of some devious plan, simply an acknowledgement of the demographic illustrated. It was obvious that 1: Many would pay in, far fewer would collect, and 2: In a society (1936, pre-war USA) where most working women and a racially biased and disproportionate percentage by race, (as farmers and domestics were ineligible) were excluded, many would be unlikely to collect at all.

       By 1960, the average lifespan had increased by almost 11 years for women, and wartime employment had made many eligible. By 1970, all Americans would live, on average, long enough to draw at least early Social Security.

       It would have taken a seer to project the baby boom and its effect on the population, which is another component of the current situation: more Americans were born post WW II and more are living longer. This isn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just a thing we needed to deal with. In 1936, 65 was old and most Americans couldn’t work much past that age. As we live longer, that has also changed. If someone (anyone!) had the forethought to build in an automatic increase in eligibility age tied to life expectancy, this still might well not even exist as an issue.

Table 2: Americans Age 65  or Older 1880-1990
Year	Number of Americans Age 65 or Older
1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000	1.7 million 2.4 million 3.0 million 3.9 million 4.9 million 6.7 million 9.0 million 12.7 million 17.2 million 20.9 million 26.1 million 31.9 million 34.9 million

       Table 2 shows that from 1940 to 1950 there was a 41% jump in eligible Americans. In the next 50 years that rose by 274 %!!! This year it will be around 63 million receiving some sort of Social security payout, and one in Four of today’s 20 year-olds will be declared “disabled” by age 65.


       Now for the real bad news. Note that in 1950, there were 16.5 employed persons paying into the system for every person drawing a SS check. In 2010 that had dwindled to 2.9 workers per recipient. For the math challenged, that’s one sixth as many persons paying in per SS check going out! In 2018, that will be 2.8 workers per recipient. In fact, it has been calculated that at 3 workers per recipient, the system would be stable, but we’re below that now.

       What has happened to Social Security isn’t anyone’s “fault,” but neither party has been willing to tell the unvarnished truth to the body politic, although Republicans are far more quick to use the “E” word (entitlements) almost as a curse word to describe a system which is, in fact, contributory so of course, having paid in, I am “entitled” to a return for my money.

       So, what is the “truth”? What should have been done? The truth is that demographic changes beyond the scope of foreseeability of the legislators have imbalanced the system. What should have been done was, that every decade, or even 15 years, from 1950 (or 1960, even) up to 2000, as lifespan increased and the Baby Boomers’ impact was now projectable by anyone who ever took Stats 101, the age for full eligibility should have been pushed back one year. Anyone in the system with fewer than ten years left until age 65 should have, of course, been “grandfathered” and remained eligible at 65 so no one had less than 10 years to plan. Early (age) 62 retirement should have been eliminated in the same manner. Both of these provisions of course, would be based on the assumption of the recipient being healthy up to the eligibility window. Even if the bump in age eligibility were only every 15 years, we’d now be looking at no early eligibility and full eligibility at age 67. We’d also be looking at a system which wasn’t in financial trouble.

       The other truth in play here is that, even if nothing were done, the problem would resolve in 15 to 20 years as Boomers die off and the “bulge” in US population smooths out. This situation is almost the poster child for Al Gore’s phrase “An inconvenient Truth.” Unfortunately, many of us would rather bitch and complain rather that acknowledge the fundamental population sea change created by the Post War baby boom.   
      “Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
         Dwight D. Eisenhower, Republican


As for Medicare/Medicaid costs, it’s much simpler and requires no special insight to understand. Drug company profits are obscene. In an environment where a 6% corporate profit is a good year, several US drug companies post numbers closer to 25%! Even more obvious is the methodology. Although the major Big Pharma corporations would love for you to believe that they charge so much because they spend so much on research and development, the fact is that 90% of new drugs (You know, the ones the advertisements tell you to demand from your doctor?) in the US are developed with NIH grants. Advertising and huge salaries are the #1 and #2 pharma expenditures. Read that and understand: your tax dollars are used to underwrite the development of new drugs. If these were manufactured at cost or with a small profit, that would be one thing, but what really happens is that University researchers are allowed to patent these drugs, having already in many cases, done trials to insure their efficacy, and then sell the patent (frequently for millions) to Big Pharma companies who advertise, create demand and, protected by patents for 20 years, soak the insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid for tens of times the actual cost. Greed, not demographics, drives health care costs, and lobbyists for Big Pharma spends multi-millions annually to keep t that way. Drug makers doled out $240 million for lobbying purposes last year, making it the biggest spender. The insurance industry was second, at $157 million. At 17.5 percent of G.D.P. in 2014, American health care costs have been rising even faster than pharma's political tab. Of the $1.05 trillion revenue (2016 figure) for the global pharmaceutical market, nearly half of it -- roughly $515 billion -- comes from the U.S. and Canada. However, the two countries make up only around 7% of the total world population. Why? The government lets it happen. Then, in what amounts to a final slap in the face, we are insulted by smiling jackass Mitch McConnell whining about cutting “entitlements.”

In a quick recap, as I explain above, there are two separate and very different issues related to costs of the so called “entitlements.” Sadly, those who call for their reductions, while favoring their rich contributors with huge tax breaks which exacerbate the deficit, are in essentially persons of means such that they’ll never be forced to rely on either program for themselves and their families. A second set of persons complicit in this sham are those of the Far Right electorate who wave the words “socialized medicine” like a bloody shirt while being so abysmally ignorant that they fail to realize that Medicare IS socialized medicine and what has perverted it and driven obscene cost increases is capitalist greed, not government mismanagement.