First Baby Boomer Asks for Social Security Benefits

Discussion in 'Wall St. News' started by ASusilovic, Oct 15, 2007.

  1. Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The first Baby Boomer applied today for Social Security benefits, a milestone marking the approaching retirement of a generation of Americans whose eligibility for government payouts threatens to overwhelm the federal budget.

    Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a retired Maryland teacher who was born at 12:00:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1946, applied this afternoon for early retirement benefits. She'll become eligible to receive them in January when she turns 62.

    ``This is the first drop of rain in the flood,'' said Bob Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy group that promotes balanced federal budgets. ``It's the beginning of an era. It's symbolic but it reminds us that we're not doing anything to prepare for this.''

    The demands on retirement programs by the estimated 80 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 combined with spiraling health-care costs will eventually overwhelm the federal budget unless lawmakers change government policies, Bixby said.

    The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in an August report that Social Security spending is likely to grow by 50 percent over the next 40 years. Medicare and Medicaid costs will increase to about 20 percent of the nation's economy during that time, the agency said, an amount that would swallow all the government's resources if tax revenue remains at historic levels. Baby Boomers become eligible for Medicare in 2011.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAAJdNHgnKUw&refer=home
     
  2. I don't see why I should be paying for her benefits or any other baby boomer for that matter.
     
  3. and they can't figure out why they paid property taxes so you could go to school for free
     
  4. Typical socialist answer.
     
  5. Get ready. We're going to live to a ripe old age. collect years of years of ss benefits. Us baby boomers wil be on the road, driving in front of you, slowing you down, getting in your way in malls, using walkers on your favorite beach, it's going to be a hoot!
     
  6. Jaxon

    Jaxon

    So, will they pay her? I guess we have to wait until January to find out.
     
  7. Why wait when you can come on down to west central Florida and see it now for yourself!?!
     
  8. Meanwhile, you have these moron presidential candidates talking about 'free healthcare' (by raising taxes).

    So really the people who don't need the free healthcare will be screwed paying the bill, as usual.
     
  9. Yeah, I was down in NPR and tarpon Springs this year, no thanks. I rather get knocked down by some young kid rushing to work than standing in line behind a bunch of old geezers taking forever picking out a watch, like what the hell they need a watch for?
     
  10. piezoe

    piezoe

    Making Social Security sound for many years to come is a trivial problem easily solved.

    Medical costs, well that's a different kettle of fish. The best solution is to break the AHA-AMA-FDA-Insurance-Drug-Industry cartel and go to a competitive system. Let capitalism and free enterprise operate. If we refuse to act, as we most likely will until there is a crisis of monumental proportion, the pain of correcting the problem will be worse, because we will end up with socialized medicine, which is perhaps better than the present but much worse than the alternative. It's unlikely that we will adopt the best solution because too many vested interests will be financially hurt. These vested interests are like the monkey that refuses to let go of the banana so can't get it's hand out of the box, and thus gets caught.

    Obviously, something dramatic must eventually be done simply because we can not go on for too many more years with medical costs far out pacing inflation. That would lead ultimately to our entire gross domestic product being spent on medical care, and it's obvious to all that that will not happen, because it can't.

    In my town, both "non-profit" hospitals plant the medians on the major thoroughfares with trees and flowers. It's lovely. Apparently it has never occurred to them to plant fewer flowers and reduce patient costs. It is also eye opening to find that physician charges, high though they may be, average only about 7% of total bills. Something is drastically wrong. Perhaps in the future Blue Cross/Blue Shield Board members will have to suffer through with only one set of alligator luggage. Wouldn't that be dreadful?

    Cheerio.
     
    #10     Oct 15, 2007