Will Covid-19 determine the outcome of November 2020?

For most people it isn't, but I check all the boxes.

 

And that will be the end of Medicare, it will be something totally different and we seniors who paid tens of thousands over our lifetimes to be forced into it will not stand for that. Start a separate "free" program and pay our your arses for it.

 

So, um ... which part of "I call that a bargain, even when you figure in what I paid over the decades" did you not understand?

Yes, I am fully aware of the cost of those years of payroll taxes for Medicare. It is still much more affordable than any plan that I could get, even through an employer. Before I turned 65, my employer-subsidised coverage was costing me $750 per month.

So, let's guess at this, since I did not retain check stubs from all of those working years. I don't recall the percentage of Medicare withholding back then, but right now it is 1.45% for the employee. Going back to my first job in 1969, at what was then minimum wage of $1.30/hr, part time gross was $26 per paycheck. Medicare would have been $0.37 per check. I worked that job for about a year, until I graduated high school. 52 x 0.37 = $21.11.

Next job was at $1.75/hr for about five months, at $70 per week, times 21 weeks is about $1,470. That's $1.02 per week or a total of $21.32.

Most of my next several working years I made about $16,000 to $19,000 per year. Even if all of those years were at $20k rounding up, that's $385 per week, with Medicare tax at $5.60 per week, or $292 per year.

My pay went up gradually, reaching about $40k by the late 80s, so guessing about six years at that level, $770 per week, Medicare was $11.16 per week or $580 per year.

Next five years or so, taking us to mid-1996, I made $53k per year give or take, $1,019 per week, Medicare tax would have been $14.77 per week or about $768 per year.

After that, I went solo and worked via 1099s at hourly rates ranging from $58 to $68 per hour, but since I was incorporated and doing my own withholding, I only paid myself a token salary from August 1996 until October 2001, $1,000 per week. Medicare tax was $14.50 per week or $754 per year. Unemployed for just over a year after that.

Next job, my salary dropped back down to $53/hr, $21.20 per week, Medicare tax was $30.74 per week or $1,600 or so per year for the next 8 years. After that, an unemployment period of another year+, followed by an even lower pay rate of $75k, or about $1,442 per week, Medicare tax was about $21 per week or $1,040 per year for three years. Then came retirement.

Let's add 'em up.

21.11
21.32
4088.00 ($292 for about 14 years)
4060.00 ($580 for six years)
3840.00 ($768 for five years)
3770.00 ($754 for five years)
12,800.00 ($1600 for 8 years)
3120.00 ($1040 for 83 years)

Total at 1.45% is approximately $31,722 total.

If I manage to live until age 85 (a reasonable guess given family history) that's 20 years on Medicare, so if I divide that payroll tax total by 20, I get $1,586.10. Adding that to the $1,608 per that I currently pay for medicare alone (sans supplement), that comes to $3,194.10 per year. Add in my rather pricy but worth it supplement and it comes to $5,246.10 per year.

When you consider that I was previously paying $750 per month, or $9,000 per year, even after years of paying Medicare taxes, I'm saving $3,753.90 per year.

 

Your question is irrelevant to my response.
It -can- be had, presently, by whoever chooses to have it.

 

The part of that in which I do not understand is how you FAIL to account for the enormous future value of that money!

LOL....WOW. You spent a lot of time responding to a simple reality that what you are calling a bargain takes into account a lot of money that you have paid in over the decades, especially when considering the foregone opportunity costs with that money. You do realize that invested money can reasonably be expected to double every 8 years or so do you not? The total over a 45 or 50 year period becomes truly astronomical.

For all of the time and all of the effort that you spent responding to what amounts to a quip, you have still grossly missed the mark. I feel bad for you having wasted all of that time for nothing.

Just for kicks....we can apply some rudimentary math to the figures that you provided. Assuming that you provided those numbers in order during those 48 years...


4088.00 ($292 for about 14 years)....since this was 48 years ago, you would have doubled this figure approx 6 times= $261632
4060.00 ($580 for six years)..... this would have doubled roughly 5 times = $129920
3840.00 ($768 for five years)...... 4 times time = $61440
3770.00 ($754 for five years) Three times = $30160
12,800.00 ($1600 for 8 years) Two times = $51200
3120.00 ($1040 for 8 years) doubled once = $6140


So this total comes out to $540,492. When you add in compounding, the figure gets even higher, but my point has already been made.

When you divide that out by the 20 years that you personally expect to collect (although statistics tends to be shorter), that means that your already paid in annual contribution comes out to $27024 plus the $1600 that you now pay sans supplemnt, and perhaps another $5000 yearly for the Medicare Supplement, that comes out to $33624 per year.

Hmmm.....that is not exactly the "bargain" that you were claiming. I do understand that the government likes to dupe people into ignoring the future value of the money that they take, but that does not mean the future value does not count. It only means that you are among the duped that do not understand that very real dynamic.

You can argue that it is a good thing that the government takes that money for retirees because many would otherwise not save money, but you CANNOT argue that it is a "bargain". By virtue of your own reported numbers, you have paid out the nose for that benefit when you understand and take into account all relevant financial factors. For people that earned more over their lifetime, they pay even more.

 

No, silly is: 1) deciding to start talking about an 'economic collapse' - not my words;

2) Deciding that only events where there was an economic issue can be compared to this situation.

You want to simplify this, I suspect because you can't sustain anything other than a simplistic argument.

OK, so now it is clear that you aren't interested in an intelligent discussion. I have described no 'calamity' nor attempted to lay blame for this non-existent event. I have described a theoretical situation that may not yet come to pass and the potential political consequences if it is handled poorly

The point of a theoretical discussion is to imagine things that may happen. That is their whole purpose. America doesn't have to become the 'epicentre' of COVID-19 for it to negatively impact a lot of people. It just has to spread far enough that schools & workplaces close down in a variety of places and the economy slows. Given the known lag time between the virus spreading and people being diagnosed and given the limited amount of testing in the US compared to South Korea, we don't know the full extent of the virus as it stands now and we won't know how well the government has handled it for months.

You deciding that I am somehow 'wishing' for a negative outcome is a vile piece of projection. Please don't judge me by the gutter standards of the American right. Just because that is how you & the people you associate with behave (I remember Ebola) doesn't mean the rest of us are so disgusting. Clearly you are incapable of having any sort of civilized discussion about politics, so I'll leave you to wallow.

 

-Your words to which I replied and how OUR conversation begun was when you said "If the economy struggles it will hurt Trump". As you point out, "Presidents ultimately get held to account for the state of the economy.". The distinction between calling it an "economic collapse" or a struggling economy is truly meaningless. They are two expressions describing the exact same concept. That distinction changes not one thing in regards to the conversation being held. Parsing words to that degree is not typically the domain of someone with a winning argument. It is rather the domain of someone that has nowhere else to go and needs to start a strawman argument in order to change the conversation off the reality that I made a very salient point. It is silly for you to insist that the president is going to take the blame if the economy struggles, and then when I say that it will likely be more like the economic struggles following 9/11, you retort with it is more analogous to Katrina, especially considering that Katrina was not an example of our economy struggling, collapsing or any other adhjective for an economic slowdown. It is even sillier for you now to retort with you never said the word economic calamity....I mean really?....Is that the best you have? Lol....YEESH!

-Well, if the predicate is who takes the blame for an economic collapse and looking at other historical examples of such, and then you jump in with your own historical example, it would only make sense that your historical example should also be about an economic collapse. It was not. Your example had nothing to do with the economy. Hence it was silly. See how that works?

I used the word calamity to describe the spread of Covid 19. Whether or not you choose to use that particular adjective is really of no consequence. You can title it however you wish. The fact that you are trying to imply that my claim was that you decided to use that particular adjective is...well....SILLY. I am sensing a distinct pattern with you.

Did I say that America has to be the epicenter of Covid 19 in order for it to negatively affect people? Of course I didnt. Did I say anything relative to it negatively affecting people? Absolutely not. The question that I am then left with is why are you then responding by saying that it doesnt have to be in order to affect people? Ahhh I get it. This is what they call when of them thar Strawmen arguments, because you are clearly arguing against a point that has not been raised.

Well, given that you are having this theoretical discussion about Trump handling this poorly, while at this moment the US is one of the major countries at the bottom of the list of deaths per million people, it is reasonable to infer that you are perhaps wishing for that to be the outcome. Once again, the conversation was about whether a President is going to take the blame that results from a global pandemic. That topic is referring specifically to the global economic slow down that is likely to follow. It really is not about a leader of any particular country. It is only a conversation about the resulting slowdown. I did make an assumption about your motive, but as explained here, I have a legitimate reason for that assumption.

I find it humorous that you are now trying to play righteously indignant that I am making assumptions about your motives, while in the same breath you are making assumptions that the "American Right" all according to you possess the same standards. It is sort of difficult/impossible to credibly play righteously indignant about assumption while you are in the process of making assumptions.


With all of that being said.....did you have an actual reason for writing this long diatribe? Or is bickering your only aim? If the former, please get to making a salient point, if it is the latter, please move on. I have no interest in bickering aimlessly.

 

Huh? Dude, Medicare is still restricted to those 65 or older. Where are you getting this "whoever" info?

 

Because everyone has access to health care that is as good, or better?

 

Nope. They definitely don't. Some are too poor to have any coverage, most have employer-based coverage, and most if those pay more than three times what it is costing me. Turning 65 was the best thing that ever happened to me where health care access is concerned.

 

Ah . . . nothing like a warranted inferiority complex to generate excuses for the communist Chinese.

 

You're not paying attention. You can't find a left wing network that isn't cheering for the virus. Even Joe is campaigning on the virus. Too bad the media forgot to report his spectacular performance in bringing his virus to its knees:

There were 60 million cases of The Biden-Obama H1N1 flu, and 12,500 deaths
There were 40 million cases of Seasonal Flu in 2019 - 2020 flu season with 36,000 deaths ,,, some of which were carryovers from the great job Joe did
There are 1437 cases of Coronavirus and 40 deaths

,,, and panic orchestrated by the Democrat media and Democrat politicians basking in the joy of societal amnesia about their pig of a virus.

The difference: Republicans didn't politicize H1N1. Politicizing hardship that befalls the country when a Republican is the WH is standard Democrat practice. They don't care about anyone or anything. Just power.

 

Please provide a link to, or list of, the left wing media you claim is cheering for this virus, or any other disease. Your opinion of liberals does not count as proof of your claim.

I'm watching MSNBC. I was watching CNN earlier. I sense no panic or hysteria on either of them. Just solid information from medical professionals, unlike the mixed messages and outright horse pucky coming from the Trump administration.

So, epic fail on proof of your claim that the left is in any way cheering for this pandemic. Care to try again? Or will you man up and concede that your were indulging in baseless right wing hyperbole?