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Barack Obama.
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Split a pill; when does the buffet open?
28 JanAs I am preparing to board a cruise ship, I look around and it is hard to see a fellow traveler under age 65 or perhaps even age 70 or to put it another way there are a large number of Medicare cards on this boat. Then I equate the cost of a cruise with the following. Yeah I know there are a lot of poor elderly, I know that because government stats tell me so. However, those averages miss a lot of people with a lot of money to spend. Hey, why not split a pill if you can do it on a cruise?
1 in 5 Older Americans Cutting Back on Health Care to Save Money
WASHINGTON—More than 20 percent of Americans age 50 or over report saving on health costs by switching to cheaper generic drugs, getting free samples, stopping pills or reducing dosages, and nearly as many skip or postpone doctor appointments for the same reason, according a new report by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
The data suggest that spending by those near or in retirement declines to match income, even when it means giving up real needs.
“We know that consumption tends to fall with age, but it’s difficult to measure whether falling consumption is voluntary,” said Sudipto Banerjee of EBRI, author of the study. “However, we found evidence that a significant segment of the older population may be making spending adjustments to their health care in order to save money.”
Specifically, the analysis found that more than 1 in 5 (21.5 percent) households reported that they have made some changes in their prescription drugs to save money, and nearly as many (19.4 percent) said they have either skipped or postponed doctor appointments to do so. More than a quarter of households (27.5 percent) reported difficulty in paying their monthly bills.
The report found that these reductions were almost equally prevalent among households, whether they reported increasing or decreasing their annual spending. Even for those who reported that their spending was unchanged, 16.5 percent reported making prescription drug changes, while 11.7 percent reported skipping or postponing doctor visits to save money.
The study also found that about 1 in 10 of those in excellent health reported skipping or postponing doctor appointments to save money, while more than three times as many (36.5 percent) of those in poor health reported doing so. Similarly, nearly 1 in 3 (29.9 percent) of those in poor health reported making prescription drug changes to save money, which is nearly twice the number of those in excellent health.
Further, the study found that single women and blacks had the highest involuntary spending adjustments: 22.8 per- cent and 24.8 percent of single women made prescription drug changes and skipped or postponed doctor appointments to save money. Comparable numbers for blacks were 25.9 percent and 27.3 percent, respectively.
The study is based on data from the 2009 Internet Survey of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The full report is published in the January 2012 EBRI Notes, “Spending Adjustments Made By Older Americans to Save Money,” online at www.ebri.org
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“Foundations will do a better job with lower administrative costs and better selection of beneficiaries than the government.” Warren Buffett
20 Jan
From an Arthur Laffer commentary in the January 11, 2012 Wall Street Journal:
Incidentally, I’m not the first to question Mr. Buffett’s commitment to “shared sacrifice” in balancing the federal budget. In a 2007 CNBC interview, when asked why he shelters his money through tax-free strategies rather than writing big checks to Uncle Sam, Mr. Buffett responded: “I think that on balance the Gates Foundation, my daughter’s foundation, my two sons’ foundations will do a better job with lower administrative costs and better selection of beneficiaries than the government.”
Amen, Mr. Buffet, I agree. I think my (and many others) modest monthly contributions to the Link Community School in Newark, NJ does a better job helping inner city minority children get a good education and better chance at the American dream than any government program. Such a program is a combination of the efforts of families who care, children who are motivated, dedicated educators and private contributors who care about effective use of their money .
That’s a lot different from government grants thrown at bureaucrats down the line who are largely unaccountable except perhaps to the politicians who want to be seen as caring for the downtrodden.
Mr. Buffet and the super wealthy like him on the left of our society must find it easy to promote higher taxes when no amount of taxation will impact them. However, it is mind-boggling that these really smart, savvy people think filtering more and more of American’s income through a massive, politically motivated, inefficient government bureaucracy is the most efficient or fairest way to raise the quality of life for us all. “War on poverty you say.”
A New Year wish
1 JanHappy New Year
And may 2012 be a better year for anyone who has struggled in 2011.
The $2.00 really dumb bet
31 Dec
Corporations are not people, but people are corporations and it appears a large number of people are just plain stupid. Witness Verizon’s attempt to charge $2.00 for paying your bill on line or via automatic credit card charge. Both methods improve a company’s cash flow, payment collection and save administrative costs compared with processing checks or cash. In addition, Verizon and other corporations have been encouraging paperless transactions for years. Who told them to accept credit card payments in the first place, electric and gas utilities don’t.
While the $2.00 fee idea has been withdrawn, how dumb was it to create the flack in the first place in an anti business environment and when Americans are being continuously told how bad off they are in this economy.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
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Voters think Social Security tax cut good for economy … Live for today!
28 DecWill extension of the two percent payroll tax cut help the economy? Most people say yes, but that it won’t affect their finances … Ummmmmm?
This from a recent Rasmussen poll:
Most voters agree that extending a 2% cut in the Social Security payroll tax for all of 2012 will be beneficial for the economy but won’t significantly impact their financial plans for the year. Congress signed off on a two-month extension of the tax cut last week but are hoping to extend it for all of 2012 when they reconvene after the holiday. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 60% of Likely U.S. Voters believe that if the payroll tax cut is extended for the full year of 2012, it will help the economy at least a little. That includes 22% who think it will help the economy a lot. Only 10% feel extending the tax cut will hurt the economy, with just four percent (4%) who think it will hurt a lot.
Interestingly, in another Rasmussen survey 60% of respondents said government is the problem, not the solution. I wonder if voters have any idea what they want, except as George Meany famously said, “more.”
Related articles
- Paul Kleyman: Media Fail to Tell Full “Tax Holiday” Story (huffingtonpost.com)
- Economix Blog: Bruce Bartlett:How Politics Came to Dominate Payroll Tax Debate (economix.blogs.nytimes.com)
Santa and his troublesome elves
23 DecLike many of you I grew up believing that all was peace and joy at Santa’s workshop at the North Pole. The elves joyfully helped Santa with his toy making and other chores throughout the year. Recently, however, I have heard that not all is well with Santa’s workforce.
Three elves have been giving him a great deal of aggravation this year. It seems Harry, Barry and John can’t get their act together. Santa is very meticulous in his record keeping, planning, budgeting and checking who is naughty and nice. And would you believe Santa operates under a budget, a very large budget to be sure, but not unlimited. That is one reason why his troublesome elves are such a worry.
I deserve a bigger pension and retirement before age 600
Harry can’t seem to get the stocking stuffing right and despite Santa’s repeated instruction, Harry insists on stuffing the stockings so full, the weight pulls the mantle down. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Barry the elf thinks every boy and girl should have the same size stocking with exactly the same amount of goodies filling it. Barry wants Santa to get rid of the list he checks so carefully. John on the other hand is rather free with the coal from time to time. Santa asked John to mentor Harry and Barry, but he did a lousy job and next Christmas Santa will need a new supervising elf.
Santa’s once sanguine workshop is also the site of growing discontent among many of the worker elves. It seems there is no way to please them and after all these centuries protests are growing. A group of especially disgruntled elves tried to occupy the reindeer shed, but were evicted after they made more of a mess than Donner and Blitzen. Another group wants Santa to stop using candles that pollute the workshop, still another wants him to find a way to stop reindeer poop falling from the sky. It seems Santa’s landings and takeoffs are driving Homeland Security nuts (don’t expect a bottle of perfume under your tree, unless you want the 1.5 oz size). There is even talk of replacing Santa’s sleigh with one that runs on solar power . . . just what we need now, eight tiny reindeer out of work. Rudolph on the other hand has benefited from the elimination of the “don’t ask, don’t tell policy.”
Even Santa himself is not immune to criticism. A group of well-meaning elves has replaced all the food in the workshop cafeteria with only healthy choices (no cookies and only skim milk). And if Santa wants to smoke his pipe he has to find a spot on a chunk of ice that has been vacated by a polar bear. Santa’s cherry nose and penchant for letting out a chuckle now and then has sparked rumors of a drinking problem and an employee assistance program referral has been suggested.
Don’t let all this news depress you, it’s Christmas and Santa will be here this year and every year to come despite his troublesome elves. Even if Santa wanted to retire, the workshop is underwater and his 401(k) is still in the tank.
This too shall pass.
Merry Christmas
Obama says “enough is enough,” I agree but I suspect we are talking about two different things
22 Dec
Just sign here I need that 2%
According to an article on Bloomberg.com December 21, “Democrats have spent the past several days warning that average middle-income workers could lose about $40 from each paycheck if the tax cut expires.” Supposedly everyone agrees the tax cut should be extended, there will be dire consequences if it isn’t, the recovery will be stalled, the middle class will be harmed, yada, yada, yada!
Somehow this has taken on a life of its own. No longer is anyone asking if we should do this at all or if we accomplished anything by doing it for 2011. Lost from the debate is the fundamental issue of changing the funding stream for Social Security. Democrats should be asking the question, what would FDR do? Instead the politicians are asking what will play well next November. And then we have the President doing this as reported by Politico:
“Surrounded on a stage by people who had responded to an invitation by the White House to describe how rescinding the tax cuts would affect them, Obama said that “enough is enough” and that “the people standing with me here can’t afford any more games.”
The very people who criticize corporations for wanting to relocate or to cut their workforce to meet earnings targets, are more than willing to do far worse to the country to meet their political goals as long as they can mask it as a benefit to the middle class. By this time next year unemployment may be at 8%, GDP 3% if we are lucky. Will the 90% of workers who are currently employed and living their lives as they always have, be in better shape to “lose about $40 from each paycheck” or will they be dependent on the extra 2% in their paycheck and be unconcerned about Social Security funding?
While counterproductive to increasing spending, earlier this year I suggested that people take the extra 2% in their pay and leverage it by increasing pre-tax 401k or IRA contributions to boost retirement savings and also avoid the shock of a future tax increase when the largess expires (assuming it does, of course). I still think that’s a good idea.
What the President probably meant to say was “the people standing with me here can’t afford me anymore.”
“Senator Reid and I have reached an agreement that will ensure taxes do not increase for working families on January 1. Ah, good news …
Related articles
- Another Raid of Social Security is No Tax Cut (economicnoise.com)
- President Obama Fires New Shot At GOP In Tax Cut Fight (huffingtonpost.com)
- Payroll Tax Showdown: What It Means to You (abcnews.go.com)
- Social Security Being Savaged, Does Anyone care: With payroll tax(SSI) cut unresolved, Congress packs up (tarpon.wordpress.com)
Give yourself a real Christmas or Hanukkah present
22 DecWhat better present can we give ourselves a present than to deal with the spoiled children who pretend to run our country?
“I want a two month extension.” “I want a one year extension.” ”I’m not talking to you until I get my way, so there!”
Vote for term limits and help stop this nonsense, sign the petition today!
Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, shame on you if you are not fed up at all that is going on .
The next thing you know they will be throwing their peas at us.
The elimination of the $1.00 coin, pat me on the back, I did what common sense would dictate (sort of)
18 Dec
Don't worry Barack, we are saving a place for you on the three dollar bill.
Let’s say you are sitting in your office and an employee comes to you and says he thinks he should stop producing widgets. Why, you ask. Well because there is a two-year supply in the warehouse and nobody is buying them. A two-year supply and you are still producing them, what the hell took so long for you to figure out you should stop production? Well, you didn’t say you wanted to save money until last week. Get out you moron, you’re fired!
Now, let’s look at the pat on the back released by government on December 13th. Do you want to bet nobody gets fired.
As part of the Obama Administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste, Vice President Biden today announced the U.S. Mint would suspend the production of presidential dollar coins for circulation. Today, nearly 1.4 billion surplus dollar coins are sitting in Federal Reserve vaults due to lack of demand for the coins. By halting this unnecessary production, the administration will save taxpayers at least $50 million per year in production and storage costs. The vice president made today’s announcement at a Cabinet meeting focused on the president’s commitment to cut waste and eliminate misspent dollars across the federal government.
Of course, the other alternative would be to promote the use of the coins or cut back on paper dollars to increase demand for the more durable coins. The coins cost fifteen cents to produce and last about forever. The dollar costs 4.2 cents to produce and last from 18-22 months. What is the best way to save money?
They use both one and two Euro coins and they are quite convenient.
Term limits for members of Congress are essential, please support the petition
16 DecAll across the US and indeed the world governments and individuals are learning there simply is not enough money now or from future generations to fulfill all the promises made by politicians.
Some of these promises were made in a sincere attempt to help people, other politically motivated and still others simply poorly thought out dumb ideas. It doesn’t matter, they all have to be paid for.
For our part we citizens generally welcome this largess be it subprime mortgages, Social Security COLAs, tax credits or generous pensions. Others see social goals such as the environment as primary over economics. Again, it doesn’t matter why we accept all this spending, it still has to be paid for.
Politicians are forever going to act in ways that get them re-elected with long – term consequences being secondary. We need to change that and to limit the potential damage so that re-election is no longer a driver of spending.
In essence, we need to protect ourselves from ourselves.
Please consider signing the Term Limit Petition. We need 100 people to sign to get to the next step and time is running out.
Related articles
- Barney Frank retires; another example of why we need term limits (quinnscommentary.com)
Are Ivy League students as smart as we think?
14 DecI always assumed that kids who went to Harvard were smart, really smart, but now I have my doubts.
Read this quote from Bloomberg.com
Students of the eight elite colleges composing the Ivy League in the northeastern U.S., such as Sandra Korn of Harvard and Tom Moore of Cornell, are criticizing their universities for sending high numbers of graduates to Wall Street, rather than to jobs that emphasize community service. Careers in financial and consulting firms are frequently presented as the best or only option, said Korn, a sophomore majoring in history of science and gender studies who participated in the Nov. 28 protest.
Or how about this one:
About 22 percent of Harvard 2011 graduates who planned to enter the workforce were headed into finance and consulting, down from a high of 47 percent in 2007, according to a Harvard Crimson survey published in May. Half the students entering those fields said they would have chosen to work in other professions if salary weren’t a concern.
If salary weren’t a concern, duh ya think? Somebody just paid $200,000 for you to get an Ivy League degree so perhaps salary is a concern. I guess if you are majoring in the “history of science and gender studies” you haven’t been exposed to the real world, but guess what, you need money to do good things too. If you want a career in community service, that’s great. If you see your calling teaching other people to study genders, be my guest. However, expect your fulfillment in life to be largely non-material and that’s fine too, but don’t complain about forever being part of the 99% or perhaps the 50%. And don’t expect other people to keep paying your way as may have been the case in college.
Keep in mind as well that the huge endowments Ivy League schools enjoy that enable them to offer courses in obscure fields of study and to conduct research came not from the history majors, but rather the one percent. You know, the people who make the tents you occupy in, the smart phone you text with and the malls you shop in, the movies you enjoy and the car you drive. And while we are talking about endowments, let’s not forget they are invested with those Wall Street types you so despise as are the pension funds for millions of Americans.
I guess if you are twenty-something we can give some slack when it comes to your naive outlook. However, one has to wonder how much the negative blame game being played by our President influences such disconnected perspectives.
Here is a message for those concerned students. Become a politician that does the right thing and does not make a career of social engineering that gets our country into fiscal trouble. Be one who is honest with people and does not make promises that create trillions of dollars in liabilities for future generations. And, oh yes, use that great education to think and analyze beyond the headlines, rhetoric and sound bites.
What I learned in basic training
13 DecThey more I hear the “I can’t” attitude that seems pervasive these days the more I recall lessons I learned long ago. Two lessons from basic training in 1964 come to mind.
The obstacle course always presents a challenge, but a lack of attention, creativity and innovation can make any obstacle more difficult. Standing at the starting line you look at a daunting array of stone walls, fences, gullies and barbed wire. You are instructed to overcome the obstacles and reach the other end as fast as possible. The only rule is you must stay within the boundary markers.The majority of recruits charge off over the first stone wall heading toward the barbed wire while the more observant realize the boundary markers are three feet on either side of the obstacles and the quickest and safest route is to run up either side. Thus those who looked for alternatives to overcome the obstacle reached their goal sooner and unscathed.
Another course requires crawling under barbed wire and avoiding bunkers containing explosives while machine guns fire live ammunition over your head. This is especially nerve-racking at night when tracer bullets are used. The instructors tell the recruits the machine guns are pointed three feet above the highest point on the course. That is little comfort unless you look carefully at the pole rising six feet above the machine gun platform, the highest point on the course. In other words assuming the worst without assessing the full situation can be risky and inhibit your forward movement.
In today’s world we would probably blame someone else for not making all this clear before the start of the challenge. It’s just not fair that the more astute were able to take the less difficult route. No doubt that 1% of recruits hampered the others progress.
Are your taxes going “up?”
6 DecFrom the AP:
The president has been seeking an extension and expansion to the payroll tax cut that will expire at the end of the year. The White House says taxes on the average family would increase by $1,000 if the cuts are not extended.
To make its point, the White House went so far as to put up a countdown clock during spokesman Jay Carney’s briefing to show when middle-class taxes would go up “if Congress doesn’t act.”
Fiddling with the isolated stream of Social Security revenue is a bad idea, we’ve talked about that before. But it is also a bad idea to propagate false concepts and politically expedient rhetoric. If the scheduled expiration of a temporary reduction of the payroll tax on December 31 is a pending disaster, what will we call it on December 31, 2012?
According to the President, extending the tax reduction “Will spur spending. It will spur hiring and it’s the right thing to do.” That’s a tall order for a tax reduction that has been in effect for a year with little or no such effect. The latest version of paying for this is a lower temporary surtax on millionaires and new fees on lenders.
And then we have this from the White House:
Good afternoon,
It’s simple. If lawmakers don’t vote to extend the payroll tax cut, taxes for 160 million Americans will go up on January 1st.
President Obama just left the press briefing room at the White House where he called on Congress to extend the tax cut, pay for it responsibly, and expand it so middle class families get a $1,500 break next year.
He told Congress to put country before party and stop wasting time.
Every day, folks are fighting to make ends meet and businesses are working to keep their doors open. The longer Congress waits to extend the payroll tax cut, the more uncertainty it creates for ordinary Americans. So we’ve put a clock on every page of the White House website, counting down the days, hours, and minutes until taxes for the middle class increase. In the briefing room, where the President just spoke, that same clock is ticking down as well.
And to make sure you have the information you need to know exactly what this means for your family, we’ve put together a calculator to show how much of your money hangs in the balance.
This calculator illustrates for you what nearly every independent economist has said: letting this tax cut expire will be a blow to the economy. We can’t let that happen. Now is the time to make a real difference in the lives of the people who sent us here.
Check it out and pass it along:http://www.whitehouse.gov/taxcu
Thanks,
David PlouffSenior Advisor to the President
The clock is also ticking on a 27% reduction in fees paid to physicians treating Medicare patients. If that is fixed how will it be paid for? Perhaps a new temporary tax on health insurers, that won’t have any negative impact on anyone. The estate tax was supposed to be temporary and the AMT was only to affect a handful of people who escaped paying any income tax. Politicians have no common sense and economists find a way to validate that.
Get ready for your tax increase and pay cut in twenty-eight days…ho, ho ho!
3 DecWhile most of us are focused on the number of days until Christmas, politicians are focused on the number of days until Americans get a tax increase and doctors get a pay cut.
What the heck is he talking about?
Well, that 2% less you are paying for Social Security payroll taxes is set to expire at year end (which we all knew for the last twelve months), but that doesn’t stop some politicians from explaining the expiration of the tax holiday as a tax increase. Just imagine what they will say at the end of 2012 if the tax break is raised from 2% to 3.1% and extended to Jan 2013?
Just imagine what you will say when you look at your first pay stub in 2013. Oh what a tangled web we weave. Better not use that extra cash for ongoing expenses because someday the expenses will still be going and the cash will be gone.
And about those doc’s pay, Congress has less than 27 days to figure out how to stop the 27% cut in Medicare’s physician payments scheduled to go into effect next year… again.
As I’ll conceived as this fee cut may be, and as obvious as it may be that temporary means temporary, these issues illustrate how politicians can’t deal with giving anyone less or taking away anything given even when Congress passed the laws that specify how the situations are to be handled.
And you really think all the parts of the Affordable Care Act will work as planned?
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