Entitled to Know

43 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare legislation into law not only for the elderly but also for younger generations who care for them. Before Medicare, half of all seniors had no health insurance and nearly 35% lived in poverty. Today senior poverty has dropped by two-thirds and all Americans 65 and older can get health insurance through the Medicare program. Medicare works.

But as Lynda Johnson Robb reminded us at our 25th Anniversary celebration in June, her father knew "Medicare would have to be carefully guarded and improved through the generations".

Unfortuntely, the privatization of Medicare has neither improved nor carefully guarded the program's core mission to provide equitable and dependable healthcare coverage for America's retirees and the disabled. In fact, massive industry subsidies to private insurers, means-testing, higher premiums and the unchecked costs of healthcare threaten the program.

But there have been some signs that the policy and fiscal truths of the Medicare Modernization Act can no longer be ignored. Our President/CEO, Barbara Kennelly hopes next year's Medicare anniversary will be celebrated in a very different political landscape in Washington:

“The Congressional Medicare veto override and vote to delay arbitrary cuts show Congress has the courage to reconsider these destructive privatization provisions written by and for the drug and insurance industries. Our members hope that with a new Congress and President in the White House we’ll be able to celebrate next year’s anniversary and the end of Medicare privatization at the same time.

This privatization, which was accelerated by the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, has left seniors saddled with rising premiums, growing out of pocket costs and means testing at a time when they are already feeling the effects of an economic downturn. We must reverse the privatization politics of the past in favor of real policy solutions providing healthcare reform nationwide and strengthening our one universal healthcare plan – Medicare.” Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO

Congress once again did the right thing and cast a vote for seniors in Medicare by setting aside the Bush administration’s flawed Medicare trigger proposal (required in privatization legislation passed in 2003) and the mandatory cuts it requires. Chairman Pete Stark says the trigger was passed solely “to do a hatchet-job on Medicare”. He’s so right.

The 45 percent threshold at which the “trigger” is set is a completely arbitrary limit included in the Medicare Modernization Act. There has never been a public debate on whether it is appropriate to establish a cap on the federal revenue contribution to the Medicare program at any level, nor has any policy rationale been identified for selecting 45 percent as that federal contribution limit. The fact that more than 45 percent of Medicare financing may come from general revenues poses no more of a problem in itself than the fact that 100 percent of the financing for defense, veterans’ benefits, education or most other federal programs comes from general revenues. The problem facing Medicare is the cost of health care, not how the cost is allocated between revenue sources.

Here’s reaction from our President Barbara Kennelly, after last night’s House vote suspending consideration of the Medicare trigger:

"The National Committee applauds Congress for postponing cuts which would have hurt millions of seniors who depend on Medicare while ignoring the real challenges facing our healthcare system nationwide. The 45% financing cap, mandated in Medicare privatization legislation passed 5 years ago, is arbitrary and meaningless in the larger debate of reigning in the high cost of healthcare. This healthcare crisis is crippling our nation and skyrocketing costs affect not only seniors in Medicare but Americans of all ages. This trigger is nothing more than a distraction from the true challenge facing Medicare: how will our nation provide high-quality health care for an aging population in an era of unchecked health care costs? We congratulate Congress for turning the tide away from arbitrary cuts and cost-shifting to seniors in favor of taking the longer view. Our National Committee members look forward to working with Washington to craft meaningful reform which will serve seniors in Medicare, their children and grandchildren as well."

Last week’s Medicare votes gave Congress and the President a simple choice: strengthen the Medicare program for seniors and their physicians or support billions in wasteful subsidies the health insurance industry has lobbied hard to protect. Ultimately, even those who’ve supported the billions of dollars of wasteful subsidies to private Medicare Advantage insurers for years realized this was a very important vote to seniors, doctors and their families.

While the major goal was to block scheduled cut in fees to doctors in Medicare there were many other important provisions, which didn’t get as much attention, yet will affect millions of seniors on Medicare, such as:

• Provides lower out-of-pocket costs for mental health services



• Offers new preventive benefits to Medicare beneficiaries



• Some widely used anti-anxiety and sleep drugs will be added to Part D coverage



• Increases funding for low income beneficiaries and extends the program
  until December, 2009



• Eliminates the Part D enrollment penalty for low income seniors



• Provides incentives to doctors to encourage electronic prescribing




For more details, here’s our summary of The Medicare Improvements For Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA).

Barbara B. Kennelly, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, issued the following statement to NCPSSM members and supporters today:

“Thanks to hard won bi-partisan support in the House and Senate, America’s seniors and their caregivers have averted physician pay cuts that would have severely limited healthcare access to millions receiving Medicare. The National Committee’s members and supporters applaud those in Congress who made the right choice today and voted to put seniors’ healthcare needs before insurance industry profits, by overriding President Bush’s veto. I hope this is just the first vote of many to come, which will reverse the destructive and costly privatization of Medicare, begin a serious bi-partisan debate about nationwide healthcare reform and strengthen the Medicare program for future generations.”

You know it’s bad when even the “clarification” gets it wrong. Senator McCain’s explanation of his ‘Social Security is a disgrace’ comment shows he either doesn’t understand the system’s long-term financial picture or he’s just picking up where the President’s privatization campaign left off. Here is his clarification from The Trail:

Hard to imagine, right? Even the most hard-core, anti-Social Security flame throwers in town generally use less inflammatory (and fundamentally flawed) language to describe America’s most popular government program. Why then would Senator McCain go there? Good question.

Now, you might be thinking “he probably didn’t mean what he said...or it was just a slip of the tongue” (honestly, that was our first thought too). However, when a politician delivers basically the same message twice in 24 hours the “he didn’t mean it” theory just doesn’t work. Specifically, here is what Senator McCain has said about Social Security in the past two days, first at his Denver Economic Town Hall on Monday:

“Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed.” John McCain, Denver Economic Town Hall, July 7, 2008

Well...Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system but that’s certainly not news, at least it shouldn’t be to someone who's been in Congress for more than 25 years. And while conservatives do want to fundamentally change the program through privatization, does that really make Social Security an absolute disgrace? Hardly.

Here’s the Senator’s second pass at the same message, pitting young versus old in an attempt to convince us Social Security is broken, this time on CNN.

“On the privatization of accounts, which you just mentioned, I would like to respond to that. I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money which is their taxes and put it in an account which has their name on it. Now, that's a voluntary thing, it's for younger people, it would not affect any present-day retirees or the system as necessary. So let's describe it for what it is. They pay their taxes and right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees. That's why it's broken, that's why we can fix it." John McCain, CNN American Morning, July 8, 2008

So, Senator McCain, not just once but twice this week, has objected to the very definition of Social Security. This is a very different argument than what has been posted on his website or presented to the American public during his campaign to date (which has been confusing enough as it is).

Our President, Barbara Kennelly, summed up our reaction this way:

“Since its inception, Social Security has been a pay-as-you-go system. That’s not new and it’s certainly not a disgrace. To suggest that Social Security is fundamentally ‘broken’ because of this fact, shows a lack of understanding of the program, its traditional role and and the need to preserve and strengthen it for the future. Social Security is a successful intergenerational program that has served this country well. If Senator McCain wants to entirely restructure Social Security’s funding, through privatization or some other means, now is the time to say it directly. Calling Social Security a disgrace is anything but straight talk.”...Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO

Sounds like an easy choice, right? Apparently, not for Republican Senators who voted against the Medicare bill last month. By all accounts, that Medicare vote, which preserved billions in insurance industry subsidies while requiring cuts in doctors’ payments, made for a tough July 4th recess for some Senators. You can certainly see why... casting a vote to protect billions in industry overpayments while cutting pay for doctors in Medicare has to be a tough sell to seniors, their families, and the doctors serving them. Especially as they're all feeling the pinch of this current economy.

The bill will come up again this week and National Committee members have added their voices to the debate by urging the Senate to cast the right vote this time around. We’re launching an internet ad campaign and have emailed our new :30 Medicare spot to our members urging them to contact their Senators before the mid-week vote:

As Finance Committee Chairman, Senator Max Baucus told reporters today:

“It’s not often we get a second chance to do the right thing... This bill will do a lot more for seniors and that’s the point. Our job is to legislate good policy...that’s what we’re doing. “

Find out how your Senators voted and then use our Legislative Hotline at (800) 998-0180 to connect to them directly with one toll-free call. Ask them to support HR 6331-the Medicare mprovements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008.

So whatever happened to the Straight Talk Express?

Watching John McCain parse words over Social Security private accounts during the past few months has left more than few people bewildered. Last week’s pronouncement that he is...

‘not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been, I never will be’

was the ultimate proof the straight talk express has jumped the track. Here’s Senator McCain on Friday:

But wait a minute, just 3 months ago conservatives were relieved to see Senator McCain promise the Wall Street Journal he still supports President Bush’s failed privatization plan, in spite of what his campaign website said at the time.

“Asked about the apparent change in position in the interview, Sen.McCain said he hadn't made one. 'I'm totally in favor of personal savings accounts,' he says. When reminded that his Web site says something different, he says he will change the Web site. (As of Sunday night, he hadn't.) 'As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it -- along the lines that President Bush proposed.' "

In fact, here’s John McCain promoting the privatization of Social Security in 2004. So much for never have, never will:

While the American people overwhelmingly rejected President Bush’s plan to turn Social Security over to Wall Street, the privatization campaign did succeed in one way...most people now understand what private accounts and the privatization of Social Security really means. Senator McCain’s attempts now to redefine what privatization is in order to hide his past and present support for a failed and wholly unpopular strategy tells seniors and their families a lot about John McCain’s priorities.

They will, no doubt, have a lot to say in return come November.

The Youth Entitlement Summit wraps up in Washington today and our President, Barbara B. Kennelly, addressed the group this morning. Given the clear anti-entitlement bent of the summit’s sponsors such as the Concord Coalition and the Peterson Foundation, some early supporters, like Rock-the-Vote, ultimately withdrew their summit sponsorship. Future Majority blogged about it here.

Barbara was in fact a very lonely anti-privatization voice in the room today. Even so, as a bi-partisan membership organization we felt strongly the National Committee’s message needed to be heard.

I’m here to tell you that my members are every bit as passionate about protecting their children and grandchildren as the organizers of this Summit. We oppose privatization because we want to protect Social Security and Medicare for future generations. Believe me, privatizers want to dismantle Social Security – not for this generation of retirees –but for the generations down the road.

Our difference of opinion is not about the ultimate goal – we are all here because we care about what happens to our younger generation. Where we strongly disagree is on how the goal is to be achieved. Organizations such as mine believe that our children will absolutely need programs like Social Security and Medicare when they reach retirement age. We believe that the best way to represent their interests is not to spend our time talking about how to cut these essential programs, but instead in finding ways to make sure Social Security and Medicare are still strong and vibrant decades into the future.

Because we are primarily focused on the needs of our children rather than shrinking the size of government, we are less likely to buy into the ‘sky is falling’ rhetoric that young people have been bombarded with over the years. I understand that combining Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid all together into one huge catastrophe-waiting-to-happen makes for great theater, but it makes no sense to those of us who work with these programs every day. While all 3 are entitlement programs, that’s about all they have in common.

But combining them all together gives you very large and impressive numbers, particularly if you accumulate decades-worth of future projections into one present day number. In a way, it’s not that different than projecting the cost of a house today by adding together 30 year’s-worth of mortgage and interest payments into one lump sum. If we really shopped for housing that way, we would all still be renting apartments.

And as for all the sky-is-falling crisis rhetoric...

Many of the people who are complaining today about long-term spending on entitlements were largely silent when annual deficits were increasing and the debt was rising to its current record level. It wasn’t too long ago that we were running a surplus which was paying down debt, and economists were wringing their hands about what disasters might befall us if we actually paid all of our debt off. I wish we still had that kind of problem.

I also find it interesting that the only solvency solution presented by President Bush and so many of those who have opposed Social Security over the years is a combination of private accounts and dramatic benefit cuts. I was quite proud of my members, who have been vocal and active in their opposition to private accounts. But their passion was not born from a desire to protect their own benefits. It was an absolute determination to protect the benefits of their children and grandchildren.

Those who promote private accounts have never suggested privatizing Social Security for older people – in fact, they are quite careful to assure everyone over age 50 that they would not be affected by anything they propose.

Instead, those who promote private accounts suggest dismantling Social Security slowly so that it is nearly non-existent for future generations. These proposals take money out of Social Security to fund private accounts, making Social Security less solvent. They would cut Social Security benefits for future retirees; they would increase the public debt by trillions of dollars over the next half century or more, and they would transfer the risk of a secure retirement to the individual. This does not sound like a youth-friendly agenda to me.

We urge you to read Barbara’s entire speech for more details on the fiscal realities facing our children and grandchildren. It’s clear that groups like those sponsoring this summit understand they have to continue to undermine younger generations’ confidence in Social Security in order to convince them to give it up or destroy it through privatization.

We’ve also taken our “Don’t Buy the Lie” campaign to our YouTube Channel and MySpace page in an effort to reach this demographic with the truth about Social Security and Medicare.

Once again the Bush administration is threatening to veto legislation which would prevent June’s scheduled pay cuts to doctors in Medicare because Congress wants to pay for it by trimming some of the billions of dollars in industry subsidies going to private insurers. Let’s see...doctor’s pay cuts or industry subsidies?

For many it’s seems obvious that supporting providers should take priority over government giveaways to an industry already seeing record profits thanks to the privatization of Medicare; however, for the Bush administration the priority continues to be to protect this industry slush fund above all else.

Congress Now quotes our Government Relations and Policy Director, Maria Freese:

“Democrats need to get 60 votes in the Senate to avoid a filibuster,but without the support of Republicans like Grassley and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who both oppose MA cuts, it will be difficult for them to be able to meet this threshold, Maria Freese, director of government relations and policy for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said.”They're going to be lucky" to get 60 votes, she said.”

So, once again Congress appears ready to protect these outrageous industry overpayments ($150 billion over ten years) even though they shave almost two years from Medicare’s solvency, and force all beneficiaries (not just those enrolled in MA plans) to pay $36 per year in higher premiums. Even MedPac continues to recommend their repeal.

Oh yes, don’t forget why Congress is even debating this issue now. Doctors serving Medicare patients will also face payment cuts in less than a month in order to protect this giveaway to insurers.

The May 21st New York Times’ editorial on Medicare Advantage Marketing Abuses is our selection for this month’s “Networthy Award” for outstanding coverage of elder issues on the net.

Entitled “Medicare’s Much-Too-HardSell” this piece narrows in on the unavoidable truth behind the inexcusable fraud and predatory marketing practices too often used to sell private Medicare Advantage plans. The Times writes:

“The Bush administration has proposed welcome new regulations to curb the deceptive, hard-sell tactics often used to foist private Medicare policies on unwary consumers. Unfortunately, it has been unwilling to eliminate the root cause of the problem: the high subsidies that prop up these plans and make them so attractive to high-pressure marketers.”

Also:

“The worst abuses have been committed by predatory marketers selling the comprehensive policies known as Medicare Advantage plans. The government pays these plans 13 percent more, on average, than the same services would cost in the traditional Medicare program. The subsidies are even more egregious — averaging 17 percent above cost — for the so-called private fee-for-service plans within Medicare Advantage. All told, the unjustified subsidies will cost the government more than $50billion from 2009 to 2012. Small wonder that plans use high-pressure tactics to market these lucrative policies.”

Our President/CEO, Barbara Kennelly, commended the Times on its dead-on assessment in this letter to the editor:

“Rather than spending even more federal dollars policing private insurers in Medicare, why not remove the underlying incentive encouraging them to push these higher profit plans in the first place? How many dollars will we spend on investigations and enforcement for private insurers who want to maximize the financial incentives provided to them by Congress?”

One of the most frequently used arguments used to promote private accounts is the promise that “you can do better” by investing your Social Security money yourself.

Problem is...for too many people, that’s just not true. A new analysis of nearly 1 million retirement portfolios show the majority of savers are making costly errors in their 401(k)s. The Associated Press reports:

"...69 percent have inappropriate risk or diversification of holdings and 36 percent have worrisome concentrations of company stock. In addition, one-third of savers aren't putting enough aside to qualify for the full company matching contribution. The problems are especially pronounced among young and low-paid workers... When looking at risk and diversification of investments, 38 percent of the portfolios had very inefficient or very inappropriate investments. That could range from a young participant with a portfolio that's too conservative to an older worker with one that's too aggressive. An additional 31 percent had somewhat inefficient or risk-inappropriate holdings. The remaining 32 percent had good balance in their portfolios.”

The study was done by Financial Engines, an investment advice firm. It’s President, Jeff Maggioncalda says:

"Unfortunately, our study found that those who need their 401(k) the most look to be benefiting the least."

That’s why the role that Social Security plays as a secure source of retirement income is so critically important, especially as pensions disappear and investments in Wall Street continue to ride our current economic roller coaster. Retirees need to save and invest for their futures; however, they also need the stable income Social Security provides.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt continues the entitlement crisis call, this time in an address to conservative think-tankers who’d rather see Social Security and Medicare just go away entirely. While using language like “drifting toward disaster” and “serious danger” to describe the program he’s overseen for almost 8 years, he conveniently ignores the role the Bush Administration has played in worsening Medicare’s financial condition.

It’s very hard to take these clarion calls very seriously when it was this administration that implemented and continues to fight to protect $150 billion in industry subsidies to insurance companies providing private Medicare coverage. These subsidies alone steal almost two years of solvency from the Medicare program. If Secretary Leavitt and the Bush administration are really worried about Medicare’s solvency...how about putting that $150 billion back into Medicare rather than private insurers’ pockets?

Secretary Leavitt also expressed concerns there could be a generational divide on funding entitlement programs:

“The kind of division I worry about is when we begin to see one generation pitted against another or when you begin to see economic classes pitted against each other. Those are the kinds of divisions that have classically divided and undermined nations.”

No kidding. Maybe this administration should’ve considered that before making a generational divide and conquer strategy a key component in the President’s failed Social Security road tour three years ago. Lamenting your own strategy, so long after the fact is disingenuous at best.

There’s also an interesting discussion of Medicare and the Secretary’s remarks, from a beneficiaries point of view, at Time Goes By. It’s definitely worth a read.

For baby-boomers who’ve been watching their retirement investment income lose money week by week, the fact that Social Security remains stable and predictable while Wall Street is anything but is critically important. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls the failure to privatize Social Security “the best thing that didn’t happen during the Bush administration”:

“... had we privatized, they’d (retirees) be totally reliant on the stock market. And look what’s happened to the market: Compared to stock values ten years ago, the S&P 500 has risen a little over 1 percent a year, adjusted for inflation. Even Treasury bonds have done better. Go back nine years and there’s been no gain at all. Go back eight years and the market has been off an average of 1.4 percent a year.”

This isn’t a unique analysis. Even a member of President Bush’s own Social Security Commission and a private accounts supporter, co-authored an analysis for the National Bureau of Economic Research which showed promises of higher returns with private accounts just didn’t hold up to scrutiny:

“...the popular argument that Social Security privatization would provide higher returns for all current and future workers is misleading, because it ignores transition costs and differences across programs in the allocation of aggregate and household risk.” The paper states: “A popular argument suggests that if Social Security were privatized, everyone could earn higher returns. We show that this is false.”

Still not convinced? Here’s the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis:

“This paper explains the basis of findings that economists broadly agree upon — that the type of rate-of-return comparison that some Administration officials and other private-accounts proponents are using is not valid, and that when analytically valid comparisons are made, the supposed differences in rates of return essentially disappear.”

Social Security is an insurance program, not an investment vehicle. Social Security is not supposed to make you rich, it is supposed to prevent you from slipping into poverty. Social Security is the one insurance program that provides some measure of economic support for Americans if a family wage earner dies or becomes disabled. Privatizing Social Security turns a safety net for everyone into a golden parachute for a few.

That appears to be the continuing strategy for Senator Jim DeMint and other congressional privatizers intent on passing Social Security private accounts, whether the American people support them or not. You have to wonder, if privatization is such a great idea why do supporters go to such lengths to hide their true goals?

The latest privatization ploy comes under the guise of "stopping the raid" on the Social Security trust fund. Senator DeMint says he’ll "force a vote" on his amendment creating a "reserve fund" in Social Security. What he doesn’t mention in his news release is that this newly created "reserve fund", actually just diverts money from the existing Social Security trust fund to a new fund to create private accounts. Senator Demint's amendment is really just a privatization sleight of hand. Rather than "stopping the raid" as promised, this legislation allows the trust fund to be raided for a different purpose...the creation of private accounts.

The truth is the DeMint amendment is just a rework of the failed Bush privatization plan. It would divert money out of Social Security to fund private accounts, increasing federal outlays and requiring significant cuts in Social Security’s guaranteed benefits to foot the bill. All of this, so that future retirees can take their stable Social Security benefits on a risky Wall Street roller coaster ride.

Our letter to Congress has more details about what this amendment really includes and our analysis on the same amendment when it was introduced three years ago is linked here.

For years now, we’ve been encouraged to worship at the altar of “ownership”. Whether it’s sub-prime mortgages we can’t afford or risky Social Security private accounts riding the Wall Street roller coaster, Americans have been promised great things from an “ownership” society. As Providence Journal’s Froma Harrop wrote in a column this week:

How interesting that the buildup to the mortgage meltdown employed many of the same sales tactics as the Social Security privatization scheme. Resentment, fear, flattery and hype — plus scant details on fees and other costs — all went into the pitch.

And Harrop correctly draws yet another comparison.

If the folks now approaching retirement saw their private Social Security accounts suddenly lose 10 percent of their value — as have many conservative stock portfolios — we'd be hearing demands for a Social Security bailout on top of a mortgage bailout...As a taxpayer, I'm relieved that Americans who don't read their sales contracts and assume that prices can't fall didn't have an opportunity to hand their Social Security money over to Wall Street. This should be the deal: The workers may invest, spend or gamble their money as they please — but not before something gets taken out of their paychecks for a boring but reliable Social Security benefit that they can't mess with.

And that’s really the point, isn’t it? Social Security is reliable and guaranteed. It’s not supposed to make us rich; it’s designed to prevent us or our families from slipping into poverty during old age, disability or premature death.

Boring? Maybe. But it’s certainly better than the privatization myth peddled to American taxpayers by an administration determined to dismantle Social Security.

Unlike many of us, Humana, a private Medicare Advantage insurer, doesn't have the post-holiday blues.

According to the Associated Press , one Wall Street analyst has upgraded shares of health insurer Humana Inc. today saying it will be at least three years until Congress can make any cuts in Medicare Advantage programs. Carl McDonald with CIBC World Markets predicts:

"There will be no Medicare Advantage cuts in 2009, and unless cutting Medicare is the first priority of the new administration, it will be difficult to enact any cuts in 2010, either," he said. "This will give Humana and the Medicare industry three more years of strong enrollment and earnings growth."

Ultimately, this is what last month’s Congressional Medicare debate really was about...protecting the private “Medicare industry’s” profits. But at what price? Seniors will continue to help foot the bill for massive Medicare subsidies to these private insurance companies, while companies like Humana report record annual profits.

MedPAC has estimated that every Medicare beneficiary pays $24 a year in higher Part B premiums just to fund these excess payments to private plans. Because subsidies are projected to continue rising, all Medicare beneficiaries can expect to pay dramatically higher premiums in the future, and can expect increasing portions of those premiums to be diverted to private plan subsidies.

According to CBO, paying private plans at the same rate as traditional Medicare would save $54 billion over the next five years and $149 billion over the next ten years. Not only would eliminating these large overpayments save billions of dollars, it would also add two years of solvency to Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund.

While Wall Street investors may be giddy with predictions of the status quo in Medicare Advantage, seniors and taxpayers aren’t likely to quietly or happily continue to foot this bill for three more years.

Yes, you read that correctly. Unfortunately, it’s a statement that is less likely to be included in any news coverage thanks to a 7-year propaganda campaign created to convince Americans that “Social Security won’t be there when today’s younger workers retire...baby boomers will bankrupt the system and you can make more money if you trade your Social Security for a Wall Street account.”

These myths are simplistic and wrong. The facts, unfortunately, are more complicated to understand. Maybe that’s why the mainstream media has bought the Social Security “crisis” claims so easily and completely? Until lately, that is.

The Dallas Morning News has among the most comprehensive articles we’ve seen in months describing the truth of Social Security. Bob Moos talked to a broad range of economists, actuaries, and advocates. He also summarizes the Presidential candidates’ positions. It’s definitely worth a read.

The huge irony of watching President Bush accuse Congress of “wasteful Washington spending” while at the same time threatening to veto a Medicare bill which could trim billion dollar subsidies to the insurance industry might make us chuckle...if only it weren’t so harmful to seniors.

According to Congressional Quarterly today: