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Commentary: Eliminate improper Medicare & Medicaid payments to save Social Security
Thomas M. Cassidy, a former senior investigator for the New York State Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, suggests better management of Medicare and Medicaid to save Social Security from insolvency and across the board cuts in 2033. He notes these health care programs have wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars since the beginning of this century, money that could have been used to fully fund the Social Security Trust Fund. For example, the Government Accountability Office released a report in April that estimates the combined Medicare and Medicaid programs paid out more than $100 billion in improper payments in 2023 alone. What the author does not mention is that those are general revenues, and it’s unclear if adding to the nation’s budget deficit is enough or even the proper way to deal with what is a demographic problem of people living much longer and having far fewer children. Read the piece here.
As an example of the leading thoughts on reforming Social Security, the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC, Inc.) believes Social Security must be preserved and modernized. This can be achieved without tax increases by slight modifications to cost of living adjustments and payments to high income beneficiaries plus gradually increasing the full (but not early) retirement age. AMAC Action, AMAC’s advocacy arm, supports an increase in the threshold where benefits are taxed and then indexing for inflation, and calls for eliminating the reduction in people’s benefits for those choosing to work before full retirement age. AMAC is resolute in its mission that Social Security be preserved for current and successive generations and has gotten the attention of lawmakers in D.C., meeting with many congressional offices and staff over the past decade.