Private or Personal Accounts?

Most of you have probably read about the battle the White House has been raging with the press to cow them into using the term personal” accounts for Social Security, because “private” accounts didn’t poll well.

Well, this morning, The Washington Post tried not to offend. All in all, “personal” won by a nose. In the article, “private” was used seven times to describe the accounts, “personal,” six, but “personal” was in the sub-head. The paper, methinks, is trying not to offend the Bushies.

Comments

[maged taman]

Americans' Future In One Plan
I know that most of you are busy to read my book. As I explained previously that Taman Health Plan (www.trafford.com) takes care of all the health care, Medicare, Medicaid and social security. It will threw away all bureaucracies out of window. Let me explain shortly how it works:
1- there will be no more health care insurance companies, no Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. My plan will take care of all.
2- Basically will be only one Big Health care organization (Taman Health Plan or THP).
3- The center of the plan will be in Washington while the health departments in every state will be the branches.
4- One organized body will be taking care of the Health Care and long term care of all Americans replacing 1500 insurance companies, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
5- This will allow us to provide a uniform service to all Americans every where in both inpatients, outpatients and long term care.
6- When you go to any Duncan Donuts branch your expectation is to have a fresh coffee and a donut with no long wait. We will try to provide a similar predictable service everywhere as Duncan Donuts. With having only one body will be able to do that.
7- The Capital of the plan will be the funds of Medicare and Social Security (before the bankruptcy of both systems). The maintenance will be a yearly tax from each of us (will replace our yearly social security and Medicare holding taxes). A percent of each of us go to his account cards and a percent go to THP itself. The money of the plan will be invested by the investing sector of the plan very likely in Wall Street.
8- We will have 5 ATM cards with a corresponding accounts. Card A (children), Card B (working group 18-65years old), Card C (Medicare card >65 years old), Card D (Medicaid card), Card E ( expensive medicines or investigations).We will have the health cards devoted to health care and long term care. Thus we will have: health cards, banks with accounts to each card and credit card machines in outpatients care and hotelling part of hospitals and nursing homes.
9- Cards will pay for the outpatient medical care including doctors, emergency room visits, investigations, medical supplies, pharmacies and the hotelling part of hospitals and nursing homes. While the medical part of hospitals and nursing homes will be budget by the plan itself.
10- In the first year of issuing cards: Card B and C (most of people) will have a bonus it could be a percent of their Medicare and social security withholding (70 % or so). We will try to be fair to every one but every one has to now that most of us already lost a lot of money with the HMO's. For next year new comers to card B at age of 18 when first issued will have a bonus of 50,000 dollars. It will change every year by a percent a according to inflation.
11- every one of us will get a statement every one or two months of his card account. Card B account will phase in card C at the age of 65. If card C account is vanished Card D will be issued (hoteling part will be less luxurious). Only few of Card B will have card D if there account vanish most likely those with severe medical problems.
12- So basically most of us will have our own account Card B then card C. Say you are 45 and you have now in your account $ 200,000 you can take one or more years out of work, you Can retire early if you like and with your card you will control all the medical services and its prices.
13- With this card system we will end all bureaucracies of health care, Medicare and Medicaid. No one will stand between you and any medical or long term service (only your card). Shop around with you card, have early health care security and responsibility and invest in your health.
14- We will not need Social Security since after age of 65 we will be able to use our cards to stay in any nursing home each according to his account in card C or card D. So when you invest well in your health you will be able to enjoy a nicer nursing home when you get old (actually it will be also a kind of tourism).
15- The money in cards do not get inherited when we pass away but recycle in the plan to support the next generations.
16- The plan will have very positive effects not only in simplifying our care, save a lot of waste in health care, give early health care security and responsibility to Americans it will also have a positive effect on the economy, saving billions of dollars to Americans, creating jobs in health care and cutting outsourcing.
Very likely, you figure it out by now I could have sold the plan to one of the presidential candidate before the 2004 election for millions of dollars (they already spent 2 billion dollars). It is my gift to the American people (it will help the healing process of the two worlds America and the Muslim/Arabs).

Maged Taman.
2/21/05

[Mark J]

Alan,

Bankrupt - someone who has insufficient assets to cover their debts

So by definition, yes, the system will be bankrupt in 2042.

President Bush is dissembling about perhaps the most important and successful domestic program in attempt to sell an ideologically-driven plan to divert Social Security revenues into private accounts.

It's my money! I earned it. I want to keep it. I don't want to bet that I'll live to the retirement age, or take the chance that I might not even see my crappy 2% return from Social Security taxes if I do make it to retirement. I want a nest egg that'll be worth hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands. I want something that I can pass on to my children when I die.

The descent into the red that Social Security faces in 13 years is only a convenient catalyst for change. The real reason for change is that the program is massively unfair to those with lower-than-average life expectancies (men and minorities), and it is a system where the government forcibly takes your money, spends it on pork projects, and then when you retire does the same to the current generation of workers, returning your money + 2%, only if you are lucky enough to live until retirement age.

The current system only works if the birthrate is constantly increasing, and the worker:retiree ratio remains high. We can no longer count on that, and we need a system that can work independent of the birthrate.

[Bob]

I was unable to hear the beginning of the SOTU speech, but when I had the opportunity to listen to the last part I declined. It's not that the guy makes my blood boil, but that in this administration what we all should have learned by now is that what this administration says is even less than window dressing. I would think even conservatives would recognize that, unlike his swaggering boasts, this guy doesn't mean what he says most of the time, even when he is trying to appeal to conservatives. The post-inaugural speech spin was a perfect example. Even when he appealed to conservatives with a message that we will stand up for freedom and insist that countries move in that direction, he spent the next week backpedaling.

This administration knows that the aura of what you say is more important than what you say. By that I mean it's not just the "framing," as George Latkoff would say, but the administration sees speech as ephemeral, something to make a quick impression and then to be ignored afterwards. If caught in a contradiction, the administration simply says "you misunderstood us." But that backtracking appears on the inside pages of newspapers, not on the front page, evening news, or on talk radio and TV. People are just left with the impression that means more to them than the policy or even the vision.

[alan]

This effort to manipulate language, combined with Bush's statemetns in the SOTU speech, lead me to conclude that that Bush must hate social security. If he is willing to say the following in the SOTU speech, malice must be involved:

"The system, however, on its current path, is headed toward bankruptcy. . . By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt. .
If you've got children in their 20s, as some of us do, the idea of Social Security collapsing before they retire does not seem like a small matter."

-- According to the Social Security trustees, if nothing is done, in 2042, the system could make 73 percent of scheduled benefits, based on a prediction that includes the fact that the value of the benefit in 2042 would be greater in real terms than the value of benefits paid today. The CBO, of course, predicts a 2052 break point and 80 percent of benefits Paying 73 (80) percent of scheduled benefits, and benefits greater than available today, does not make a system "exhausted and bankrupt." Certainly it would not collapse.

"Thirteen years from now, in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in. And every year afterward will bring a new shortfall, bigger than the year before. For example, in the year 2027, the government will somehow have to come up with an extra 200 billion dollars to keep the system afloat — and by 2033, the annual shortfall would be more than 300 billion dollars."

-- The federal government promised as part of the 1983 reforms that the surplus in Social Security trust fund would be repaid with general government revenues, such as from the income tax. President Bush has implemented, and plans to make permanent, income tax cuts that would put the cost of covering the social security trust fund in the pale. Basically, Bush, rather than taking steps to make sure the federal government honor its promises, is reneging. And reneging to protect his tax cuts. Said tax cuts massively favored the most well-off in our society.


"But we have to move ahead with courage and honesty, because our children's retirement security is more important than partisan politics. . . . And we will make sure this plan is fiscally responsible, by starting personal accounts gradually, and raising the yearly limits on contributions over time, eventually permitting all workers to set aside four percentage points of their payroll taxes in their accounts."

-- Having just proclaimed the false, he proclaims the need for honesty. He claims that personal accounts will be done in a fiscally responsible manner -- this coming from a president who has driven the federal budget into massive deficits and who wants to make the tax cuts, which are primarily responsible for the deficits, permanent.

****

Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about private sexual behavior. President Bush is dissembling about perhaps the most important and successful domestic program in attempt to sell an ideologically-driven plan to divert Social Security revenues into private accounts. And the GOP faithful get up and clap.