ObamaCare: Giant Meteor Scheduled to Strike in 2014

/PRNewswire/ -- Some argue that ObamaCare isn't ripe for legal challenge, since the most onerous requirements won't be in effect until 2014. By then, the machinery for implementation, and associated "stakeholders," will be cemented in place and much harder to dislodge.

The effect, however, is already being felt, argues attorney Andrew Schlafly, writing in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (http://www.jpands.org/vol15no2/schlafly.pdf). Schlafly is general counsel for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), which filed suit in the District of Columbia on March 26, three days after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or "ObamaCare") was signed into law (www.aapsonline.org/hhslawsuit).

"By analogy," he writes, "if we knew that a giant meteor would crash into the Earth in 2014, it would have a huge immediate impact on behavior today."

After enactment of PPACA, there was a 10 percent drop in the value of health-related stocks, while the rest of the stock market was rising.

Some physicians are planning an early retirement, and bright students will forgo a medical career because they want to practice "innovative medicine in the free market rather than Post Office-style medicine controlled by government bureaucrats."

Likely physician shortages may keep businesses from relocating to rural areas, and anticipated new costs may keep businesses from expanding.

AAPS argues that it is an unconstitutional "taking" to force individuals to buy insurance they do not want, and which may not cover the medical care that they eventually do need.

Mandatory insurance has failed in Massachusetts, where there have been relatively few uninsured, and imposing that approach on a nation 50 times as large as and less wealthy than Massachusetts is likely to be a still bigger failure.

Schlafly cites a reason for cautious optimism: free enterprise could still expand "amid the rubble and ruins wrought by this legislation."

In addition to overturning the insurance mandates, the lawsuit asks the Court to demand an honest accounting of the solvency of the Medicare and Social Security programs, and to invalidate a rule that seniors must forfeit all Social Security benefits if they decline to participate in Medicare Part A, with its increasingly draconian restrictions.

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Policymakers Have Many Options to Make Social Security Both Solvent and More Adequate

/PRNewswire/ -- Social Security, the foundation of economic security for millions of America's seniors and working families, can be made more adequate and solvent for the long term, according to a new report released today by the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI).

The report, Fixing Social Security: Adequate Benefits, Adequate Financing, outlines approximately 30 options for putting the program's finances into 75-year balance and more than 10 ways to make Social Security more adequate for those who rely on it. All options have long-range cost estimates from Social Security actuaries.

"Fixing Social Security is a manageable job. While Social Security does not need more money now, policymakers could act now to make funds available in the future when the money will be needed," said Virginia Reno, co-author of the report and Vice President for Income Security at NASI.

"We also need to consider the adequacy of Social Security benefits," said Janice Gregory, president of NASI. "Long-term shifts in private retirement plans are placing more risks on individual workers. Recent losses in jobs, home equity, and individual savings are weakening all other sources of financial security in retirement. Only Social Security has held its value. Yet benefits remain modest for all, and inadequate for some especially vulnerable populations."

Benefit adequacy options in the report target such financially vulnerable groups as:

-- The oldest beneficiaries (over 85 years);
-- Widowed spouses of low-earning couples;
-- Low-paid workers generally;
-- Workers with gaps in paid work due to childcare; and
-- Students in college or vocational school who have lost parental
support due to death or disability.

Other adequacy options would increase benefits across the board for current and future beneficiaries.

Options to balance Social Security's future finances include:
-- Lifting the cap (now $106,800) on the earnings from which workers and
employers pay Social Security taxes;
-- Broadening the base for Social Security taxes;
-- Scheduling modest rate increases in the future when funds will be
needed;
-- Dedicating progressive taxes to pay part of Social Security's future
cost; and
-- Gradually lowering some future benefits.

A recent survey conducted by the Benenson Strategy Group (BSG) for NASI and the Rockefeller Foundation found that Americans want to preserve and improve Social Security, even if it means paying higher taxes to do so. "Even before the recession, fear of an insecure retirement was among Americans' top economic concerns," said Danny Franklin of BSG. "Those fears have only intensified in the past year. Americans today are willing -- even eager -- to invest in the peace of mind that Social Security provides."

The NASI project receives support from the Ford Foundation's initiative on Economic Fairness and Opportunity and the Rockefeller Foundation's Campaign for American Workers.

The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization made up of the nation's leading experts on social insurance. Its mission is to promote understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic security and a vibrant economy.

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