IBM freezes pension, switches to 401(k)

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Optimist

The first thought in social dislocations like this is a deal with the government. A public benefit like single payer medicine is a contract, subject to change without notice by one party when the terms become too onerous.

Social security and the government's impending default on its promises is a good example. Particularly because it shows the way the public will engage in wishful thinking as much as possible.

Give you an example.

Every year the excess of payments to the government over payouts to social security recipients is taken to pay other current expenses. In return, social security receives IOUs called bonds. They have no intrinsic worth; they're just promises to pay money from the current budget years from now.
When it comes time to "cash" the bonds to pay benefits, every cent to pay recipients will come from the current budget, whatever the payment is called. Nothing but an accounting dodge.

But try to say that to a large group of people, and at least some will argue the point loudly. They insist the bonds must be worth something because the government has promised to pay them.
Weird.
If the only payment to social security recipients in a year came from those bonds, social security outlays could be cut (what?) 90% and the full faith and credit of the US government would be intact.

If there were single payer medical coverage, the government would figure out a way to conceal the cost, and because people wanted the program so badly they'd accept being deceived.

Sooner or later the program would "suddenly" run out of money and the reduction in medical coverage and increase in costs would dwarf anything the private sector is now capable of doing.

So an optimist is someone who believes that making the government a principle payer of medical services would be a lasting gain.

To your credit, you didn't say that, though you did comment that no one has made any effort to change what companies are now doing about their costs of medical care. Worth keeping in mind, though, that some alternatives provide no benefit. Or benefits eventually.

Your condition makes you much less likely to accept promises as accomplishments. I do sympathize with you, for your condition, for what you have to do to keep it in check, for the realism it makes necessary. Some hope is necessary to plan.

My best guess about what happens next relies on the fact that a very large proportion of total medical payments is expended on persons in the last few months of life, when the quality is not easily endured.
But I won't take that speculation any further.

Posted by: Anton Philidor   Posted on: 01/06/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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