I could care less about a $1,500 tax break when it's going to be funded by delaying Medicare eligibility. For a paltry $1,500, he's ensuring I will have to continue to pay $15,000 a year in insurance premiums and deductibles for an extra two years (65 to 67), even though I held up my end of the bargain and paid my required share in medicare and social security taxes for 45 years. And these are the premiums for healthy people -- they are age driven. For those two years alone, he's offering me $3,000. but costing me $30,000. What a deal. And it's not an entitlement he's denying, it's money I've already paid in which the Government always told me I could count on receiving back in the form of Medicare at age 65.
And what if we get disabled between 65 and 67? Disability policies end at 65 (probably because that's when people start receiving Medicare)and even though some policies can be extended, the premiums for doing so this late in the game are so exorbitant, it makes little sense. If we become sick or disabled and unable to work at age 65, and we have no Medicare or disability insurance, how do we survive? On social security? That's a laugh. I'd rather Obama asked me to donate $1,500. to someone already needy and left Medicare alone. I would have been glad to do it.
Obama's health care law was a bust. Premiums just keep going up. It will be another two years before insurance companies can stop charging extra for adults with pre-existing conditions, but already premiums are going up in anticipation of the extra expense to health insurance companies.
I noticed last night in his speech, Obama said his "modest reforms" to Medicare and Medicaid won't mean cuts for "current beneficiaries." Obviously, that excludes those of us on the precipe of eligibility.
I'll be curious to see how he implements this. If it starts in 2013, as was mentioned a few months ago, he's earned my ire for good. No coming back.
I may not have an economic background (other than for white collar crime) but as a "small business owner" for 35 plus years, here's what I think. How many people approaching age 65 can save an extra $15,000 a year for two years to cover the cost of continued private health insurance until they reach age 67, while staying current with income taxes, especially if they have to prepare for the possibility of being laid off, unemployed or disabled? How will they also be able to pay for their kids' college educations, which Obama thinks is so important? As he's so fond of saying, you can't do both.
There will be a lot of people shifting to Medicaid with Obama's plan, and it's just going to cost the country more. It may shift the spending, but it won't reduce it or cut the deficit.
As for creating more mortgage money for refinancing home mortgages, unless the mortgages are offered free of credit checks, how many will qualify, given the struggles most homeowners have faced the past few years? Only the people who could have gotten them anyway.
What business owner struggling to stay afloat is going to hire new workers for the promise of a tax cut? How does that help those who are struggling to meet their existing payrolls? The best way to cut payroll taxes is to have fewer not more employees, and pay less and owe less.
Obama is as fixated on tax cuts as the Republicans. If you don't have income, tax cuts don't do much for you. If you can't afford the employees you have, hiring more to get a tax cut makes no sense. Especially in a downturn economy where consumers aren't spending and either can't get or are afraid to take out more loans or incur more debt.
Every time Obama comes up with a new plan, I feel more marginalized. More set up for disparate and unfair treatment. If I feel that way, and I'm neither poor nor sick, and my business is doing fine, I can only imagine what those who are afflicted feel. If they aren't furious, it's probably because they have no time to pay attention, they are too busy trying to survive.
What's astonishing to me is that Obama is so willing to throw seniors under the bus, when he's facing a re-election. Seniors vote in huge numbers, even those in nursing homes. The youth vote never materializes to the extent predicted. Short of promising marijuana legalization, which Obama won't do, it won't be any different in 2012. So who is going to vote for him? Construction workers, affluent business owners in need of tax breaks, teachers and veterans? That's not enough to win him an election.
