Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Who is Subsidizing Whom?

The HHS website continually extols the benefits to younger people of the new law. Today they presented some young person who wanted a job in an entertainment PR firm. They state:

....is a great city to live in -- it’s definitely the “up and poppin” area to be in for the entertainment industry. We’ve got .... studios, we’ve got ..., we’ve got ..., and there are ... shows too - there’s always a red carpet or other celebrity event. So I was excited when I had the chance earlier this year to change careers and go to a public relations firm. But I had to think first about the fact that the PR job didn’t come with health insurance benefits. Fortunately, the Health Insurance Marketplace made it possible for me to get affordable health insurance and join the PR agency. I selected a plan that costs $80 a month, with a tax credit, through the Marketplace, which is affordable for me.

Now for those of us on Medicare, an thankfully not using it, we have paid in well over what we would ever expect to get and continue to pay in at a tremendous rate. Namely 3.5% of our gross income from anything, even a sale of the house, is collected and if we are fortunate to make some money our Medicare fees rise significantly from some $100 per person per month to well over several hundreds per person per month.  The total can easily exceed ten thousand a year which is above and beyond what we had already contributed.

So I am supporting some 28 year old who wants to get into PR and more than likely several more like them.

Hopefully I keep rolling along and keep contributing so they all get a subsidy. Yet they are the same ones who bemoan any penny we may draw from what we have contributed and continue to contribute. Perhaps Rawls had a point....I shudder to think.