Issue Position: Social Security

Issue Position

"Ask Schriner about Social Security, and he talks more about what's become of the elderly in American society... He contends the elderly have been discarded -- in nursing homes, assisted living communities and in their retirement travel -- because they are no longer valued in their own communities."
-The News Gazette, Champaign, IL.

Position paper excerpt:

On a stop in North Carolina, we interviewed former North Carolina State University instructor David Kalbacker. He said he gladly pays house insurance, health insurance, car insurance with the hope he doesn't have to collect on any of them. He asks, "why shouldn't that be the same for Social Security?"

That is, while everyone would pay into Social Security as yet another insurance, it should only benefit someone who becomes disabled during his/her lifetime, or if they really need it in retirement.

Kalbacker said in retirement, drawing Social Security would be contingent on income. If a retiree makes, for instance, $70,000 [arbitrary figure] a year or more, on pensions, stocks, bonds, etc., they shouldnt be eligible to draw from the Social Security Fund.
- Dynamic programs to reestablish the elderly as active and highly-valued members of their community.
- Maintain Social Security Fund -- with some significant changes.
- SS Fund should be a lock box, where the money put in shouldn't be diverted for other government projects - which is currently the case.
- Look at SS Fund as paying into another insurance fund - the same as car insurance, health insurance and home owners insurance. That is, you collect only if you need it. That is, if someone's yearly income (pensions, stocks, bonds) exceeds, say, $70,000 (arbitrary figure) after retirement then one wouldnt be eligible to draw from the SS Fund that year.
- In the face of the significant number of Baby Boomers now moving into retirement, the latter would keep the SS Fund solvent and available for those in need.
- Expand SS Fund scope to no interest home loans for those who have paid in over a five-year-period and are trying to get established with home ownership. (Eligibility would be determinant on income as well, with the advantage going to those in low-income brackets.)
- Inspire the establishment of many more Community Pharmacies, like one we researched in Monroe, Louisiana. (Local fundraising for medications, nursing homes donate medication after a resident has passed, doctors donate sample medications). This would help keep SSs Prescription Drug Program more solvent.
- And push for more Marrilac Clinics, like the one we researched in Grand Junction, Colorado. (Volunteer doctors, nurses and general citizenry doing janitorial work, intake work, secretarial work have set up a comprehensive, sliding fee scale hospital in Grand Junction.) This, in turn, would help keep Medicare, in general, more solvent. *And it would exponentially increase the neighbors helping neighbors orientation, some of which weve significantly lost in this country.

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