January 30, 2012
You have to love Fred Hiatt and the Washington Post’s oped page. The country is suffering through the worst downturn in 80 years. Tens of millions of people are unemployed or underemployed. Millions are facing the prospect of losing their homes. And tens of millions of baby boomers are looking at a retirement where they will be entirely dependent on their Social Security and Medicare.
With this state of affairs, they naturally rise to the occasion by denouncing politicians for being insufficiently attentive to “needed Medicare and Social Security reform.” Of course, people familiar with the Congressional Budget Office’s projections for Social Security know that there is no need for Social Security reform. The projections show the program will be fully solvent for the next quarter century even if no changes are made. Even after it is first projected to face a shortfall in 2038 it would still be able to pay more than 80 percent of projected benefits. It is difficult to see why dealing with a projected distant and modest shortfall should be a priority given the economy’s current situation.
As all policy wonks know, the problem with Medicare is the problem of U.S. health care costs which are more than twice as high per person as the average for other wealthy countries. Therefore the issue should be fixing the health care system. If the United States faced the same per person health care costs as other wealthy countries we would be looking at huge budget surpluses in the long-term, not deficits.
Towards the end of the piece we are told:
“If America doesn’t tackle its debt problem, everything else is at risk: economic growth, the safety net for the poor, investment in research and roads.”
Yeah, things might get bad if we don’t start taking the Post’s concerns about Social Security and Medicare seriously. It would be great if the Post’s oped staff could get access to government data on unemployment, housing equity and family wealth.
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