What
You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter
Bush's Worst Appointment
Yet?
Read Jeffrey
St Clair's blazing expose of the new Interior Secretary nominee
, Dirk Kempthorne, and make up your own mind. Even in the dingy
history of Idaho's predators, Kempthorne stood proud as the dingiest
of them all. Now he's poised to seize his place in history. Will
he be the sleaziest Interior Secretary in history, sleazier than
Watt, fouler than Fall?
More on the great Israel Lobby debate! Norman Finkelstein blazes
a new path, asks "Are the Neo-Cons really committed Zionists?" "Bliss was it
in that dawn" Not in Michigan! Raymond Garcia describes
Dem governor's appalling plan to scapegoat youth and teachers. Plus the full print version of Virginia
Tilley's savage dissection on this website of the double-standard
onslaught on Hamas by the US and EU. CounterPunch Online is read by millions
of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely
by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription
to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find
anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions
are tax-deductible.Click
here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please:Subscribe
Now!
The 2006 Social Security Trustees Report,
which includes the Medicare program, was recently released.
The trustees projected the year 2040 as the depletion date of
the Social Security trust fund versus 2041 in the 2005 report.
Thanks to the Greenspan Commission
in 1983, the trust fund is running a surplus of Social Security
taxes collected. Contributors include employees, their employers
and the self-employed.
As in the 2005 report, the
trustees still project 2017 as the year that the costs of the
Social Security program will exceed its tax revenues. The trust
fund is designed to address this estimated shortfall.
The New York Times ran a report
(5/2/06) and the Washington Post a column (5/9/06) that ignored
the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office,s projection of
2052 as the year for the depletion of the Social Security trust
fund. This slip shrinks the context of Social Security,s future.
Further, the Post columnist
wrote the bonds held by Social Security were "IOUs from
the U.S. Treasury." That is an odd description of such
interest-bearing certificates.
In serious business journalism,
bonds are called bonds. Apparently, such journalistic standards
do not apply to the Post columnist,s coverage of Social Security.
The federal government is legally
obligated to repaying the bonds in the Social Security trust
fund. A default would be illegal and drop the credit rating
for other government bonds.
The Times reporter and Post
columnist also did a poor job of explaining the financial crisis
facing Medicare, the government program that provides health
care to Americans age 65 and up, plus some disabled recipients
of Social Security. In the new report, Medicare,s hospital insurance
trust fund is projected to run short of cash in 2018 versus the
2020 date projected by the trustees a year ago.
In brief, Medicare,s cash crisis
is being driven by the rising cost of U.S. health care, which
is exceeding the rate of inflation. For example, the Consumer
Price Index (minus energy and food) rose at a 4.1 percent annual
rate during the past three months versus a 5.2 percent annual
rate of increase for medical care prices.
In 2003, the U.S. spent 15
percent of its gross domestic product on health care versus five
percent in 1960, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development. Meanwhile, the U.S. lacks a national health
care program for all of its citizens.
Canada spent 9.9 percent of
its GDP on health care in 2003 compared with 5.4 percent in 1960.
Crucially, Canada provides universal health-care coverage to
its populace.
Corporate monopolization is
one process driving up the cost of U.S. health care. When the
federal government grants patent monopolies to pharmaceutical
corporations, they hike by triple digits the prices of prescription
medications that dominate the market place in the absence of
competition from low-cost generic drug producers.
Such a process and not Medicare
itself is helping to cause its projected shortfall of funds.
Repairing the U.S. health care system is the solution for what
ails Medicare and Social Security.
Seth Sandronsky is a member of Sacramento Area Peace
Action and a co-editor of Because People Matter, Sacramento's
progressive paper. He can be reached at ssandron@hotmail.com
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.