Exposing Looney Left Lie 15: We "New" Seniors Pay For Our Healthcare Providers Too

As explained in an earlier post, we seniors really really pay for our hospital costs. Maybe Harry Truman and all those people who originally began immediately drawing Medicare benefits in 1965 -- who were born in the 19th century -- didn't really pay their way¹. But in terms of Part A those born after about 1930 surely did and perhaps even those born in the 1920s. So the next thing to look at is Part B of Medicare.

My one deviation from illustrating the flow of Medicare funds purely in the image above and in a whole series of related posts is that the "Medicare income tax contribution" shown does flow through the general fund (green in image).

In fact there is no literal "Medicare income tax contribution" but instead I am referring to the percentage of your income tax payment over the 40-50 years of paying such taxes that goes into the Part B Trust Fund via the General Fund.

In a forensic accounting sense, the General Fund gets involved only if the sum of all other specific or effective earmarked contributions exceeds the sum of expenses. That has not happened yet for people born in the 1940s -- we "new" seniors -- and is unlikely to happen unless a vary large percentage of us live into our late 80s.

1This statement is based on analysis -- as with all similar analysis -- that assumes the "premiums you pay" into Medicare Trust funds for the 40-50 years before you begin drawing benefits from Medicare are invested at a reasonable rate of return the way they would be if a real financial services company -- instead of the inept Federal government bureaucracy -- were involved.