This is Viewpoints for Thursday, December 14, 2017

What’s the plan, Paul?

Like Charles Richardson, I am concerned about the future viability of Social Security and Medicare. They are the only entitlements because our tax dollars fund them. The government takes 6.2 percent of an individual’s pay each pay period as a Social Security tax, and employers pay an equal amount. The government takes 1.5 percent of an individual’s pay each pay period as a Medicare tax, and employers pay an equal amount. Congress raised the age for an individual to receive full Social Security. They will raise the age again. Social Security benefits are taxed. Each month the government deducts a significant amount from an individual’s Social Security benefit to pay for their Medicare insurance. The amount of the deducted premium has risen over the years. Many doctors do not accept Medicare patients.

House Speaker Paul Ryan claims health care entitlements are the cause of deficits and the debt. He wants entitlement reform. But how to pay for it? He wants to increase the amount of the payroll tax deducted for Social Security and Medicare. He wants to raise the age to receive full Social Security. He wants to increase the amount deducted from Social Security benefits to pay for Medicare premium. He wants to cut Medicaid.

Why does Speaker Ryan want to do this? He wants workers and employers to pay payroll taxes for as long as possible. This ensures a steady stream of funds to pay for tax cuts.

The deficit is the difference between the amount of tax revenue collected and the amount of money Congress spends. The debt is the amount of money we owe to our creditors. The interest rate increases as the debt grows.

How will Speaker Ryan reduce the debt? When will Speaker Ryan pass a balanced budget? What will Speaker Ryan do if the corporate tax cuts do not increase tax revenues, create more jobs and increase wages?

Sacrifice

“Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, is under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”

The innocent blood of shooting victims should be avenged to the fullest extent of the law and, in the end, revered as a sacrifice for liberty rather than a pretext for the prohibition of gun ownership. Guilty blood is shed in self defense which is the first law of nature according to Tucker.

Medicare shortfall

When insurance companies and health care providers can’t agree on their contracts, like in the recent story about Anthem BCBS and Hartford HealthCare, patients are forced to pay out-of-pocket for health care. This can also happen when insurers fail to include emergency air medical providers in their networks, or fail to cover those services appropriately, resulting in unexpected bills for consumers.

One of the primary benefits of health insurance is that consumers don’t have to worry about large unpaid bills if they experience a medical emergency. But often insurers fail to provide full coverage for emergency air medical transport, leaving patients to cover the costs of this critical care.

But these services are at risk because 70 percent of the patients transported by air have Medicare, Medicaid or no insurance at all. The reimbursement rates for Medicare have not been updated in two decades – unduly shifting costs onto patients with private insurance that often don’t have the provider in network or don’t cover the charge.

Congress is considering legislation that would address this Medicare reimbursement shortfall. H.R. 3378/S. 2121 should be passed to ensure that providers are adequately reimbursed and private insurers who refuse to pay don’t harm consumers.

Unnecessary expansion

Earlier this week I noted that the Macon-Bibb County Commission has approved $550,000 of SPLOST money for the expansion of the new skate board park at Central City Park. This seems to be in addition to $400,000 already spent. Earlier this year I wrote about another $550,000 expenditure on a small park on Ridge Avenue which seemed to be wildly excessive.

Whereas there have been some really great SPLOST projects, including the Amerson Water Park and the Filmore Thomas Park on Log Cabin Drive where there is heavy public use, these seemingly small projects presented no compelling need. All of these new projects also require additional maintenance and employees not covered in the SPLOST. Frankly, a nearly million dollar expenditure on a skateboard park blows my mind in light of the huge problems with housing blight. Are these silly projects part of horse trading amongst commissioners?

Perhaps the SPLOST program is now generating so much money that the county is operating on the old government philosophy that says, “if you don’t spend all the money then you won’t get as much next time.” I would be interested in a detailed breakdown of what the SPLOST funds have been spent on, not a general list, but a detailed report of each expenditure that The Telegraph could publish or post on its website.

As I have no doubt that another SPLOST is in the works, I would submit that it be a single purpose SPLOST with a laser focus on cleaning up the housing blight in this city. These hundreds, perhaps thousands of abandoned houses are magnets for gangs, drugs and are responsible for the destruction of entire neighborhoods.

Let’s leave the skate board centers, new baseball stadiums, water parks and other fluff until we are an affluent community. Do I hear an amen?

Raise, no raise

I just got my Social Security statement for next year and we are getting a 2 percent pay increase for 2018. Wonderful. However, Medicare A, B and D are also going up and along with an increase in the Medicare supplement, I will be getting $40 less per month than in 2017. Somehow it just don't seem like a raise.

This story was originally published December 13, 2017 at 11:14 AM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Thursday, December 14, 2017."