...Social Security and Medicare History Present Configuration Future Projection GERO100 March 31, 2012 Hopefully we will all be physically able to work until the age of 65, collect retirement and Social Security and live an enriching life until we leave this world. Not all companies financially support their employees with fully funded retirement plans so it is left up to the individual to actively participate in saving for their future. When someone reaches retirement age, if the finances are there, they are usually only a fraction of what they were making as a full-time employee. This is when one hopes of having Social Security and Medicare benefits to supplement our retirement income for a more stable financial future. There are several reasons the Social Security Act was passed in August 1935. The elderly were living longer due to the availability of better health care, autonomy in workplaces to make jobs easier on individuals, and the modernization of our country’s water systems. Due to this increased longevity in the lives of the elderly, they were also more poverty stricken. An intention of the passage of the Social Security Act was to reduce the burden of loss of income to retired workers aged 65 or older. (Quadagno, 2008) It also included provisions for unemployment insurance, old age assistance and aid to dependent children. Benefits were to be paid based on the primary worker and was to be funded through payroll taxes deducted from the worker’s...
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...WEEK 5 DQ 1 The history of the Social Security Act, as listed by the Social Security Administration, provides an interesting foundation/principle regarding the establishment of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other pertinent information relating to mankind and its perception on economic issues. I encourage you to read the information to gain an understanding of this foundation/principle. It is very interesting and educational! History of the Social Security Administration: U.S. Social Security Administration. (n.d.). Historical Background and Development of Social Security. Retrieved from http://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html What are the effects of government-sponsored health care programs for special populations—children, mentally challenged, older adults, patients with specific diseases, and so forth—on health care costs and health care access? What are the effects of government-sponsored health care programs for special populations—children, mentally challenged, older adults, patients with specific diseases, and so forth—on health care costs and health care access? There are six major goverment health care programs 1) Medicare 2) Medicaid 3) the State Children's Health Insurance Program(SCHID), 4) the Department of Defense TRICARE and TRICARE for Life programs (DOD TRICARE) 5) the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Program, 6) and the Indian Health Service (IHS) program-provide health care services to about one-third of Americans....
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...we should go back to what the welfare system was when it was started in the colonies with the British Poor Laws. These laws established guidelines for two different groups of people. The first group was those that cannot work due to their age, or physical or mental health. This group was given assistance with cash and other forms from the government. The second group was those who could work but did not have a job. The people in this group were given help by giving them employment in workhouses. In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt enacted the Social Security Act “to provide for the general welfare by establishing a system of Federal old-age benefits, and by enabling the several States to make more adequate provision for aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment compensation laws; to establish a Social Security Board; to raise revenue; and for other purposes.” Under this plan, it was easy to receive money, food and medical assistance if you were a single woman raising children, the more children you had the more assistance you received. This system has grown generations of families that have been dependent upon the government to support their children. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Under this act the federal government gives a lump sum to the states to use to assist the poor, the...
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...Agency which control the the regulation Social Security Administration for this assignment, it is a federal government agency. 1 Interesting : Am interested in the Revised medical criteria for evaluating mental disoders proposal due to the fact that the Social Security Administration affect the lives of most Americans and proposed changes will impact many citizens. The proposed regulation will not affect me or affect my business, because am into car retailing business and the proposed Social Security regulation does not have direct impact on the retailing business. 2 Proposal/Change A proposal to revise the criteria impairment listings used to evaluate mental disorders in adults and children pursuant to Titles II and IVI of the Social Security Act. This proposal also includes removal of certain sections of the regulations and include them in other sections of the Social Security Administration regulations. The reason for the proposed changes is the result of adjudicative experience and advances in medical knowledge recommended in a commissioned report and comments from experts of the field and the public. 3 Public Comment : As I know a mental disorder child who also receiving Social Security benefits, I am in agreement with the proposed changes. The revision stating that the Social Security Administration will recognize non-physician sources, such as therapists and social workers will be helpful in assisting claimants in the future. As stated in the proposed...
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...A Broken System SOC 304: Social Gerontology October 29, 2012 The Social Security System, created in 1935, is the one of the most costly items in the federal budget today. The program was created to provide old age, survivors and disability insurance to a large portion of Americans, mostly the elderly who are now out of the work force. The Social Security Act was a major turning point in American history Today the U.S. Social Security system has been in the news a lot lately. While politicians throw around dramatic words like crisis and bankrupt, regular Americans have more concerns. Social Security has assisted to defend millions of employees from scarcity in their elder years, but demographic truths have transformed over the last seventy years and are still altering. (Smith, 2010) If Social Security does not transform with them, the system will be incapable to fulfill its guarantees to tomorrow’s retirees and will load the next generations, our children and grandchildren, with hard taxes. The President would let Americans save some of their Social Security taxes in personal retirement accounts that they own and that Congress can never legislate away. Personal retirement accounts would strengthen Social Security by assisting all US citizens to raise their retirement income and pass on a nest egg to construct a better fiscal future for their households. (Smith, 2010) Several Social Security professionals think the system is in crisis because it will soon be incapable to...
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...Social Security History, Current Structure and Calculation of Benefits The Social Security Act was implemented in 1935, after the stock market crash had wiped out the savings of millions of Americans, the nation reached out to their president to guarantee the elderly a decent income. The original Act provides retirement benefits payable to a person 65 years and older who were no longer working. There were very few people that had access to pension from their employers and through government pension programs. Most of the elderly lacked enough income to be living on their own without working. The Social Security Act was enacted at the urging or President Franklin D. Roosevelt to create a social insurance program that ensures workers would have a source of income after they retired (2010). In the years that have followed, Social Security has become one of the Federal Government’s most popular and essential programs. Despite all efforts to encourage savings and investment, the retirement picture has not changed much in recent years. Today even barely half of the workers have access to retirement plans at work and millions reach retirement age without enough savings to provide sufficient living. The Act also provided funds to assist children, disabled like the blind, the unemployed and provide family health programs. The placement of Social Security brought complex challenges to the administration. The administration had to register citizens for benefits, contributions...
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...1. Is the social security system base in the same principles as private insurances? Why or why not? No, I do not feel like they are based on the same principles because social security is Work Related and enables economic security for workers and their families is based on their work history. Entitlement to benefits and the benefit level are related to earnings in covered work. Benefits are an earned right and are paid regardless of income from savings, pensions, private insurance, or other forms of no work income. How much a person gets and under what conditions are clearly defined in the law and are generally related to facts that can be objectively determined. 3. Do you think workers should be permitted to invest all or part of their social security taxes into a personal retirement account? I do think that workers should be permitted to invest into a PRA because it would let the\m save and invest for their retirement and provide workers with a property right to the funds contributed into their accounts and reduce dependency on the government. 4. How does social security affect the economic well-being of blacks relative to whites and Hispanics? According to statistics blacks have a shorter life expectancy than whites and Hispanics, blacks are more likely to pay a lifetime into social security and see little of it. Hispanics have an above average life expectancy and therefore derive a higher return rate than both whites and blacks. Blacks also have a lower return...
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...Social Security just turned 80 years old this year and it still remains the single most effective anti-poverty program ever created in the United States. Throughout history, mankind has struggled with the welfare of the elderly and disabled. Before social security was available, many in the United States were unable to accumulate enough wealth to support themselves in the later years of their lives. The elderly and disabled would become a burden to the family and society. Unless you happen to die before you get old, everyone grows old and eventually just about everyone will not be able to continue work and earn an income at some point in their life. Before major portions of the population lived in organized societies, the old and disabled...
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...Social Security at 80: Time to Retire? or Revise In 2015, America’s Social Security System turns 80 years old. The original act was a landmark bill, as it was the establishment of America’s safety net. The promise of the act was to ensure that America’s retirees would have some protection from poverty. Since the Social Security Act of 1935 was passed, the social safety net has been expanded to cover additional groups and classes of people. The most important additional programs established being MediCare and MedicAid. After years of running a surplus, Social Security has reached an inflection point. At the current rate of drawdown, the trust fund will run dry, and Social Security will begin to operate as a pay-as-you-go program, potentially only paying 75% of promised benefit levels. This paper will discuss the history of Social Security, demographic and technological trends that affect Social Security, the future implications of these trends for Social Security, and possible solutions. A Brief History of Social Security Social Security as we know it today evolved from the Social Security Act of 1935. Under the terms of the original law, Social Security benefits only applied to the employee. Today, Social Security pays benefits to the employee, the spouse, and the disabled and contains the provision for what is known as Medicaid and Medicare. When compared to today’s law, the scope of the original version of the Social Security Act was much narrower. For example...
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...validity for arguments is important. I will choose arguments from the Applications list 12.2(a-y) that is at the end of Chapter 2 in The Art of Thinking to evaluate for truth and validity. The first argument will be exercise j and the statement is, “power must be evil because it can corrupt people (Ruggiero, 2012)”. The first step of the evaluation process involves evaluating to look for any hidden premises, and ensuring that it is stated in a clear way and fully. This argument passes the first the step. The next step involves checking whether the statement has errors that affect truth. To begin with, the first part of the statement that says that power corrupts all people-in this case, all is inferred- is untrue. This is because throughout history, there are several examples of people who had power that was not corrupted. To make the argument more valid, it would be rewritten as, “power can be evil since it can corrupt some people (Ruggiero, 2012).” The next step entails evaluating the argument to check for validity of errors, and also determining the reasoning that connects conclusions to premises. The aim of this is to check whether the conclusion is legitimate or illegitimate. In this case, the argument fails on several points. On top of revising it, the argument has several questions that required answers. One of the main questions is: how corrupt should people be before they are considered “evil”? Several people are corrupt but they would not be considered evil. The other question...
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...Re: Legislative History of Community Healthcare Reform in the United States Overview In South Dakota, 25% of uninsured adults live in families with an income between 100% and 199% of the FPL (“South Dakota Medicaid,” 2014). I believe that a large number of the persons listed in this statistic are college students. For the Fall, 2013 semester there were 47,590 students enrolled in the 31 colleges and universities in South Dakota (Current Term Enrollment, 2013). I encourage you to expand the Medicaid program in South Dakota to, at the bare minimum, allow for coverage to our state’s young people who are pursuing higher education. In this report I will be reviewing the history of Social Service programs and the amendments made to them in the United States and South Dakota. The parties involved include the Federal government, the South Dakota Legislature and the citizens of South Dakota. The report will be a chronological history. Origins of Social Welfare for Medical Care The American Association of Labor Legislation (AALL) was formed in 1906 and their committee on social welfare drafted a bill in 1915 that outlined coverage to the working and low income classes. It included coverage for hospital and doctor care as well as maternity coverage and sick pay. The issue was highly debated for many years but eventually it was abandoned by the end of World War I (Palmer, 1999). Modern Community Health Program coverage has it’s beginnings in the Social Security Bill passed in...
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...A Report on American Economics in English Includes Social Security. 006 American Government-Economics Most of the problems of the United states are related to the economy. One of the major issues facing the country today is social security. The United States was one of the last major industrialized nations to establish a social security system. In 1911, Wisconsin passed the first state workers compensation law to be held constitutional. At that time, most Americans believed the government should not have to care for the aged, disabled or needy. But such attitudes changed during the Great Depression in the 1930's. In 1935, Congress passed the Social Security Act. This law became the basis of the U.S. social insurance system. It provided cash benefits to only retired workers in commerce or industry. In 1939, Congress amended the act to benefit and dependent children of retired workers and widows and children of deceased workers . In 1950, the act began to cover many farm and domestic workers, non professional self employed workers, and many state and municipal employees. Coverage became nearly universal in 1956, when lawyers and other professional workers came under the system. Social security is a government program that helps workers and retired workers and their families achieve a degree of economic security. Social security also called social insurance (Robertson p. 33), provides cash payments to help replace income lost as a result of retirement...
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...cash to make purchases or withdrawals 5. deduction (withholdings)- an amount that your employer withholds from your earnings to pay for things such as taxes or insurance 6. deficit- when more money is spent than earned 7. Denomination- the face value of money 8. electronic fund transfers (EFT)- money transferred from one bank account without any actual money (paper or coins) changing hands 9. electronic funds- 10. encryption- code 11. endorse- approve or sign 12. federal income tax- the tax you pay the federal government on the income you earn 13. Federal Reserve- institution responsible for creating and tracking all of the country’s money 14. FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) – Social Security tax 15. fixed income/expense- income that does not change month to month 16. gross income- pay before withholdings 17. income- all the money that you earn or receive 18. net income- pay after withdrawals 19. payee-the person a check is written to 20. personal Identification Number (PIN)- identification number used with a debit card 21. purchasing power- the number of goods or services that can be purchased with a unit of currency 22. standard of living- a measure of how comfortable you are based on the things you own 23. state income tax- tax determined by individual states on the income you earn 24. surplus-when more money is earned then spent 25. variable income/expense- Activity 1: ...
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...Krista Lee Professor Akins HIST 1302 26 February 2014 “New Deal Legislation” Franklin Delano Roosevelt became 32nd President of these United States. At this time American was a country that was facing one of the foulest economic issues in history. Ever since the Great Depression more than seventy-five billion was lost, the gross national production ensured nearly downgraded from one hundred and four billion to seventy-four billion. Over this time United States exports fell over sixty-two percent. Over twenty-five percent of the workforces in our nation were unemployed; in some places the unemployment was higher than others. Walking through the streets in agony many women and men dressed in such despair searched for work, any source of food, and any soup kitchens to wonder into to keep from starving. In other parts of America, such as the rural areas, many crops just sat there to rot while the farm income went downhill and most families were forced to leave their homes and find somewhere else to settle down. Due to all the economic issues, over 11,000 banks shut down and the United States banking system stopped functioning completely. The nation seemed to be collapsing and becoming into an economic gulf that had a possibility of resulting in a complete breakdown of array. Many feared that if the nation did not take action into trying to resolve the issue, a revolution would be right around the corner. Due to all the fear sweeping over the nation FDR took the responsibility...
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...Ageism in America: The Elderly Tommy Brooks SOCW 230 Social Welfare History October 5, 2012 Ageism in America: The Elderly In this paper I will look at the concept of old age. I will take a brief look back through history at how society viewed the elderly. Starting in the 1500’s in England, here I will look at the life expectances and the way it fluctuated. I will take a brief look at the life expectancy of women in France in the 1700’s. This will show how age accounted for a significant minority of the populations across the world. The elderly have been categorized throughout history. By the early modern periods the concept of old age was accompanied by a long list of expectations. These included: experience, social, and cultural signals, within which consisted socially constructed markers: gender, social class, and individual life experiences. Other signs were physical: hunched back, lameness, deafness, toothlessness, balding or graying hair, and just plan grumpy and frail. I will give a brief look at how the elderly were perceived at times negative and even vicious. Back to where the elderly women were viewed as wise and nurturing elderly mothers. Here we will see where the age of sixty was widely associated with the onset of old age. Then we will move into the time of the first settlers in America. It’s true at this time as it was in Europe, the elderly men and women constituted a miniscule proportion of the white population. Then I will begin a journey into...
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