Totally my fault. Let me correct.

A health savings account (HSA) is a tax-advantaged medical savings account available to taxpayers in the United States who are enrolled in a high-deductible health plan (HDHP. The funds contributed to an account are not subject to federal income tax at the time of deposit. Unlike a flexible spending account (FSA), funds roll over and accumulate year to year if not spent.

We have 4 plans at work. Most employees get one of the “normal” 80/20 type insurance plans. I take the High Deductable HP (fully paid for by the company) and supplement it with a Medical Savings Account (paid for by me, but it rolls over into my personal account year after year). I haven’t made an insurance claim in 15 years, since I have to pay the first $5000 deductable. But I expect to retire with $70K in my MSA, which should pay for a lot of Medicare deductibles and co-pays.

How about Medicare for all (who want it).

Medicare for all is just another government mandate to buy health insurance (from the government).

In a related poll:

Twice as many Americans rate the country’s morality as poor rather than excellent or good, and three out of four people say it’s getting worse, according to a new survey Friday.

For three-quarters of Americans, the outlook is bleak: 73 percent said moral values are deteriorating, while 19 percent said they’re getting better.

Coverage of child births – whether wanted or not – is much more expensive than birth control, itself.

This could be your opening line for government-forced sterilization.

When did the Health and Human Services mandate come out that requires Viagra be covered by employers health insurance?

Too bad they didn’t ask “Would it be morally acceptable for the government to require you to pay someone elses bills?”

For Ub ar 52.

The spreadsheet really wasn’t that much effort, and I’m not mistaken in the statements I made. Some are upset that it sounds like I’m making some kind of bold claim, but I just said “for example if you started working in “59″ you’d get back the dollar amount you paid in in 20 years in 6 month (one year if you include the employer amount).

Min. wage doesn’t change the dollar amount. I’ll give you the fact that it’s different.

I also don’t take in inflation. Granted.

I made a true statement. Too many folks will just ignore it, or think, well, it’s probably inflation and min. wage, so let’s ignore it.

Head in sand.

“BUT most importantly, I saved the yearly SS statements as towards how much I earned in the first 20 years of contributions and I can tell you I definitely did not get back in the first 6 months what the SS Admin says I contributed during the first 20 years. Of course I started contributing back in 1964, not the 70′s”

I can’t tell you how much you made, or how much you contributed, but I can tell you the maximum you would have been required to contribute.

And for someone starting in ’59, they paid in MAX $120 per year.

I don’t know what your monthly check is, but if it’s more than $1200, you made that up in Jan.

To OFG at #45 (Linky thing doesn’t seem to work).

Except for your course language, I agree. I said it at #20.

“BTW, in my haste I neglected the employer contribution, so if you take that as your money, then it would be closer to a year to get back 20 years”

I also agree that as far as paying back more than one contributes, it doesn’t matter anyway. That’s not the way insurance works (and it’s not really exactly insurance, but kind of).

“The FACT is Social Security has, over the years, built up a huge trust fund because it has collected more than it paid out. THAT’S MATH for you.”

I agree with your math, even though there wasn’t any. The $2.5T trust fund should last for more than 20 years, as I said in #4. You’re late to the party potty mouth.

I didn’t ignore safety net aspect or survivor benefits or cost of living benefits.

I just said you’ll get your first 20 years paid in, back in half a year. It’s math, not nonsense.

SS by law can not contribute to the deficit

I believe it did last year “by law” when they passed the payroll tax holiday. The 2% break that we all got was “by law” made up for out of the General Fund, contributing to the deficit.

You’re also correct about this “That’s why Social Security payments/benefits have been re-calculated numerous times before, and need a small recalculation (raising the cap or applying to all forms of income, for example) to better meet the needs in 25 years.”

The cap and the rate have been raised dozens of times. I think the only time they applied to other forms of income was to tax SS benefits.

On this we can mostly agree. That marym in IL @ 29 is mostly correct.

My grandmother lived to 102, and one of her kids died at 64. One collected a whole lot more than the other. But that’s the way it works.

I started working and paying in in the mid 70’s. By that time the max. contribution was $16,500 (not that a high school kid made anywhere close to that) and the rate was 4.95% for employer and employee. So the max. anyone paid in that year was $816.75.

The 20 year in 6 month rule wouldn’t apply to younger people.

As I stated originally, shows you how much lower the payroll taxes were then, and how much more generous the benefits are now.

I may be wrong, I don’t have your paperwork. But the SSA says you (and your employer) didn’t pay more than $120 in payroll taxes in 1959.

If you claim your paperwork says you paid more than that, your conscience will have to be your guide.

Get back to me when you have a fact.

Social Security’s Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program limits the amount of earnings subject to taxation for a given year. For earnings in 2012, this base is $110,100.

In 1959 it was $4,800.

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/cbb.html

Social Security’s Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program is financed primarily by employment taxes. Tax rates are set by law and have changed over time and apply to earnings up to a maximum amount for OASDI.

Today it’s 6.2%, in 1959 it was 2.5%

http://www.ssa.gov/oact/ProgData/taxRates.html

So the most you would have paid in 1959 is 2.5% of $4,800, or $120.

It’s easy to see how you would pay in for 4 or 5 years in the 60′s, to pay for your first months benefit today.

I’m not suggesting anyone take anything away from you. But I don’t know why you find the facts to be nonsense.

I built a spread sheet going back to the inception of SS. Originally it was 1% on the first $3000 max income.

Using libs numbers of current age 68, started working at 16, then in 1959, the most anyone would have to pay in was 2 1/2% on $4800 max. income, or $120. In 1960, the max. would have been $144, and so on.

BTW, in my haste I neglected the employer contribution, so if you take that as your money, then it would be closer to a year to get back 20 years of “investment”.

What’s interesting is you’ll get back in the first 6 months what you paid in in the first 20 years.

Shows you how much lower the payroll taxes were then, and how much more generous the benefits are now.

As I said, if you want to bring down health care “spending”, you need to spend less on healthcare.

You turned that into “costs” which is not the same thing. It doesn’t matter to me how much an MRI costs if I don’t need an MRI, which I never have. I take care of myself as best as I can and self-insure for small things and then buy catastrophic coverage for the “unexpected”.

To follow your game, I wouldn’t get on one of those rides because that would constitute risky behavior that I try to avoid. However, should an accident occur, and something go wrong, I’d whip out my $5000 deductible and buy one of the re-breathers, free market worked.

As I said, I pay a tiny insurance premium for catastrophic coverage and then set aside my deductible in a Health Savings Account which rolls over year after year in my name.

As far as any moral dilemma goes, I pay 2.9% of my income to Medicare and Medicaid like everyone else so that those who don’t use my plan or are too poor to buy some other acceptable plan can still get government provided healthcare to get their re-breathers.

Why would SS go bye-bye?

The Trust Fund will supplement revenue shortfalls for 20 some years, and the SSA will still be able to pay out 75% of benefits after that.

And as Jon said above, they’ve only been talking about cuts to Social Security benefits through the change in COLA. That ammounts to something like .2%.