Jeff, I rarely notice ‘polls’ and NEVER blankly said the government ‘can do nothing right.’

“Ignore reality”?… Read the ‘facts’ of the financial picture for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Since when is a public ‘poll’ considered the standard for facts, other than awareness of the public?

I thought professional newspaper men and women dealt with facts, not public opinion poll fact. Retired or not, you are a trained professional news-person and I don’t understand how you can be unaware of the dire financial government mismanagement of those three government programs, much less want add the massive health care to the demonstrated incompetent government control.

I’m curious…at what age do you think a person is too old to qualify for a pace maker?

Sharon O’Hara

A poll (image) depicting Social Security as what the public believes should be a top four concern for the current administration.

“Additionally, Americans may harbor doubts about how well government and healthcare bureaucracies can implement a highly complex new set of laws encompassing a large segment of the U.S. economy. This “practical” doubt is reinforced by recent data showing that Americans give Congress a low job approval rating, have relatively low levels of trust in the federal government, and believe that about half of all federal tax dollars are wasted.”

I stick with my main point. Yes, there are people calling for reform of Social Security and Medicare as well as the health care system. But if people felt these were programs the government shouldn’t be involved with (a socialist intrusion into our personal lives), the calls would not be for reform, but for elimination.

People who would state flatly that the federal government can do nothing right, can offer no positive assistance, simply sucks away at the market economy’s ability to create jobs, are simply wrong and ignoring reality.

So don’t go there. The situation is more nuanced than that and understanding it deserves a little more thought and a little more effort.

— Jeff

http://www.newsweek.com/id/199167

It brings up the most excellent point that “we continue self-defeating habits because we can—temporarily.”

Which may explain why there is not enough visible surface public outrage and thus causes Jeff to reach this conclusion…”What I’m suggesting is that if the government had messed up Social Security and Medicare to the extent you’re describing, I would expect that there would be a lot of people calling for the programs to be eliminated”

Also if you are only listening to people calling for the “elimination” of such programs you are doing a disservice to the population at large. The cry for the “reform” and “accountability” of these programs has been a constant rumble for quite some time now like the article says regardless of who or what party is in power.

We’re cross-talking. I don’t think the public feels that the government has failed to run Social Security or Medicare. I believe if you check public opinion polls, you will find them to be viewed as two of the most popular and necessary programs and most people would rather have the government guarantee an annuity retirement payment for life and to survivors than to take their money out of the system and invest it themselves.

You seem to think that people see Social Security and Medicare as public failures. I don’t think they do, and I certainly don’t think that leaving our health care system as it is would serve anyone particularly well because, as it is, we pay twice as much as the average Western nation and get health results that are worse than 35 of them.

— Jeff

It didn’t occur to me and I can’t imagine taxpayers calling for them to be ‘eliminated’ for any reason. Their money is invested in these programs.

It would be nice though, each taxpayer should have the option of withdrawing all the money they have invested in it plus interest.

All taxpayers have been forced into paying into Social Security all their working life, expecting the funds to be available when they reach the age. They are now part of the ‘culture’ of America.

I don’t have the answers, I don’t know how to fix these problems…I do know I don’t want to live in a government controlled country that is bankrupting us with wild spending, careless borrowing and printing more money to throw away.

Is it fair, Jeff, that medical people are only paid a fraction of their costs by Medicare and Medicaid?

How do you imagine a senior might feel seeing a doctor pressured into seeing a patient he doesn’t want because he/she is cheated – again, by our government.

Realistically, our health care system is already controlled by the government – Medicare and Medicaid – not the insurance companies. The government controls the insurance companies too so they aren’t subject to the ‘free enterprise system.’

Our government has failed the programs they already run, what makes you think they can run a health care system?
Sharon O’Hara

What I’m suggesting is that if the government had messed up Social Security and Medicare to the extent you’re describing, I would expect that there would be a lot of people calling for the programs to be eliminated. But of course, they are not. Because even with the problems of fraud by providers of Medicare services, and with the issues of how the Social Security system will remain properly funded in the years past 2035, people still believe these programs benefit the public.

What I’m wondering is whether you believe that a system controlled by the insurance and the big drug companies that has delivered us poorer health outcomes for twice the cost that is paid by the citizens of other countries deserves to be seen as anything better than the government could operate?

— Jeff

If memory serves, there are 51 million people on Social Security and mismanagement has siphoned away the dollars needed for the future people who have paid into it all their working lives and when they are of the age to use it, the money won’t be there.

Medicare and Medicaid have also been mismanaged by the government. If you have proof of the beneficial government management of these programs, I’d like to see it.

I certainly haven’t seen evidence that the public has any desire to eliminate these programs either. Who said they did?

The issue is government incompetence to run the programs we already have, and the lack of money to pay for any of it. You know these things better than I do but you’ve just done a stunning example of a real life ‘slant’ change of an issue direction.

I saw something today that absolutely shocked me. The website of a small business owner has added her recommendation of a political person to her business site…his photo and name…possibly meaning that she is turning off about 50% of future business attracted to her website.

What do you think?
Sharon O’Hara

I’m not sure you can say the government has failed at running Medicare and Social Security. Millions of people have some kind of financial and health safety net because of those two programs, both of which were assailed as “socialist” when they were originally proposed.

You can say the government has work to do to assure the long-term future of those programs, but I certainly haven’t seen any evidence of a public desire to eliminate Social Security or Medicare as bad programs.

— Jeff