Bruce Webb at the Angry Bear blog makes an interesting observation about the annual report of Social Security's trustees issued yesterday:
The 2009 Social Security Report projected a 75 year actuarial gap for combined OASDI [Old Age Survivors and Disability Insurance trust funds] of 2.00%. ... I fully expected this gap to edge up. Instead it was revised down to 1.92% putting it back to where it was in 2001. Why the change? ...
The OACT [Office of Chief Actuary, Social Security] calculates that HCR [Health Care Reform] will result in dollars being shifted from employer paid health insurance to wages after the Exchanges et al are fully in operation. This seems to rest on an argument from economic theory that has employers setting total compensation at some rate established by the underlying fundamentals and then backing out health care costs from that, with the idea that savings in the latter simply means more of the total flowing to wages.
This can't be serious. Obamacare is much more likely to cause higher unemployment and lower wages as companies try to cut costs to meet the mandates. Guess how that will impact the trust funds?
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