Lower retirement age to 60 (raise payroll tax) and provide medicare to all over age of 55, and...

[Dawgs]

The Democrats will start to save the economy.

It probably won't hurt their chances at keeping the majority either.

[zipplewrath]

1. Allow those 50+ to buy it.

I might add to that a plan to allow folks 50 - 55 to buy insurance through medicare, and basically the actual cost/value.

Adding a feature allowing people 18-25 to buy it as well might be a winner too. Politically, that'd ultimately climb every year as folks wouldn't want to lose it. Pretty soon you'd have an entire generation that wasn't scared by "government run health insurance".

[WonderGrunion]

2. I'd eliminate the cap on payroll taxes for SS & medicare first

Wait a year to see what effect that has on the funds for those programs and then look at expanding coverage under those programs.

[bornskeptic]

10. There is no cap on Medicare tax.

All earned income is subject to Medicare tax.

[bluethruandthru]

3. Allow everyone to buy into Medicare. n/t

[bornskeptic]

12. Only the wealthy could afford that.

The 2010 budget fincludes $453 billion for Medicare. That is about $10,000 per enrollee. That provides only Part A (hospital)coverage. To get Medical coverage, a person pays an additional Part B premium of about $100 monthly. Then you don't have any prescription drug coverage until you purchase a Part D plan, and you don't have a limit on out-of-pocket expenses until you purchase a Medigap policy. If you do all of that, you have great insurance at a total cost of over $15,000 a year, although you do still have the donut hole to worry about if you need name-brand drugs.

[Perky]

4. Wouldn't that further erode the tax base?

By reducing receipts from income tax?

[bahrbearian]

5. Retire's would be giving jobs to the youger people that aren't working.

[Perky]

6. I am dubious.

[Imajika]

9. Where has that worked?

"Retire's would be giving jobs to the youger people that aren't working."

Many European nations have tried lowering retirements ages and where is the evidence this policy created more jobs? They typically have a higher jobless rate than the US, and many European countries are moving to reverse those policies and are now raising the retirement age. France even reduced workweeks to 35 hours thinking if people worked less hours there would be more positions for others - yet there appears to be no evidence this worked and France has either raised the workweek back to 40 or are in the process of doing so.

[BlueMTexpat]

11. France has recently approved the draft text of a law to RAISE

the age of retirement from 60 to 62. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gU2F65iFJv-oMxIshoveTuyIT28Q

Official retirement age for regular staff members in the UN and international organizations is 62. There are some exceptions, e.g., top-level elective or appointive posts (e.g., Secretary-General, Directors-General, Executive Secretaries, etc.) and individuals who possess special skills, talents or knowledge that are needed for specific projects. In these latter cases, a specific request detailing the rationale for extending employment must be submitted to and approved by the agency head on an annual basis. Further, no funds are added to pension coffers after age 62, although one receives the money that ordinarily would be paid in and can invest it oneself. I've never quite seen the full sense in that - IMHO, it would make more sense to allow such earners to keep paying into the pension fund. ? There is some consideration that the retirement age should be raised to 64. It will take time for this to be enacted, if ever.

For a comparative study on current retirement ages, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement

I am a legal resident of Switzerland where official retirement ages for woman and men are different: 63 and 65. The Swiss Federal Government is also considering whether to raise the retirement ages in order to increase revenue.

Lowering retirement age goes against the trend. In my experience, people generally retire when they can afford to and, in the US, the raiding of pension coffers that began during St. Ronnie's era and continues to date has left too many retirees without the pension values they thought they would have. This also occurred when defined benefit plans got modified to defined contribution plans - yet another management sleight-of-hand. The increased cost of living has further eroded pension and SS values. Many retirees have no choice but to return to the workforce to supplement pension and social security income. You see more and more of them working at McDonald's.

[eridani]

29. They don't have higher jobless rates. They're just more honest in their reporting n/t

[golfguru]

28. Retiree's have high health expenses and can't always

afford to retire.

[Dawgs]

13. How do you mean? I know many people (spouses) that are only working to keep healthcare.

There is absolutely no doubt that the freed up positions would be filled by underemployed workers.

[dkf]

7. Some people retire at 55 nowadays. Why do you need to lower it to 60?

Unless you are talking about Social Security age. I'm sure they could start allowing even earlier payments but I imagine the monthly amounts would be severely reduced and not nearly enough to live on.

[Dawgs]

14. You're correct. I meant social security age. Of course, IMO, that translates to retirement.

:hi:

[bornskeptic]

18. Anybody who can afford to retire at 60 with or without Social Security

doesn't need help anyway. If you want to spend more money on Social Security, why not give a little to the older people who have to work at minimum wage jobs until they die to keep food on the table, and often barely get enough from Social Security now to cover their Part B, Part D, and Medigap premiums?

[MikeW]

19. not necessarily true ...

there are jobs that have mandatory retirement ages.

Almost ALL LEO positions have this requirement.

[bornskeptic]

20. Of course some people have to retire, or choose to retire, from certain jobs

at age 60 or earlier. Sometimes those people retire altogether, but as often they go back to work at other jobs. I'm just saying that if such a person has enough in savings or pension income to remain retired, then I see no social need to help him or her additionally, when others are far more needy.

[MikeW]

22. ture ... also

Federal Gov. employees on FERS retirement system depend on SS as part of their income as their pensions were reduced

when they went over to FERS from CSRS.

[global1]

8. Excellent Idea - Think Outside The Box......

makes way for young people to take over the jobs vacated by the over 60 bunch. A great way to jumpstart the economy. Do we have any supporters in Congress that would push such an program?

[vaberella]

15. If by some miracle it passes the house it would NEVER pass the Senate.

The Republicans want to raise retirement to 70, not lower it. And many Dems would probably agree with it. So don't expect this to EVER happen. It's a great idea, just utterly unrealistic because of the political climate we're dealing with.

[bornskeptic]

16. Lowering the Medicare age to 55 would cost more than twice as much

as the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. By my best estimate there are around 30 million Americans in the 55-64 age group. Current Medicare costs are approaching $11,000 per enrollee per year. People in the 55-64 bracket could certainly be covered more economically, but probably not for less than $7000 per year, which would put the total cost of expansion at perhaps $210 billion for next year, and growing in future years both because of increasing medical costs and a larger number of people entering that age group. By contrast the recent reform had a cost of about $90 billion per year over the next ten years.

[Dawgs]

31. Didn't I say 60?

Where are you getting 55?

:shrug:

[flamingdem]

17. Newsweek this month praised Boehner for wanting to up retirement to 70! nt

[Rosa Luxemburg]

21. You know sometimes you have to be bold

just do it! Tie up and gag Republican senators and put them in a corner. Taking America back couldn't have been more simple!

[seattleblue]

23. Retirement age is 67. Maybe as a first step we could lower it back to 65.

Where it was for decades before they raised it. Unfortunately the American people did not raise a peep when they raised it so now they think they can keep on raising it to 70 and beyond.

[Honeycombe8]

24. They'd have to raise your taxes by a LOT to pay for boomers retiring early.

They're going to have to raise taxes just to continue supporting the SAME retirement age as now.

If that's proposed, whoever does the proposing, he'll lose that election.

[eridani]

30. Wrong. They already did that in 1983 n/t

[donheld]

25. Nobody will hire you after 50 anyway.

[bahrbearian]

26. Unless you flip a mean burger.

[donheld]

27. Not in Denver, even then no chance.