It was a rough week for America's retired seniors. First, PPACA architect and physician Ezekial Emanuel suggested people over age 75 should stop taking any life extending medications. He framed it as his personal decision before talking about "population based" medicine.
“It is really about what you are doing to contributing and enriching the world. I want people to stop focusing on just more years, focusing on quality,” Emanuel says.
Older people can die early to save other people money. This leads to the second abuse of retirees. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback cut funding for the Kansas state employee pension.
The governor cut state contributions to KPERS $40.7 million for the next six months, dropping the employer contribution rate to 9.5 percent from 12.1 percent.This reduction does not impact the pension liability, so theoretically the state of Kansas will make up the shortfall over time. Then again, maybe not.
The third harming of retirees came from Congress and it jeopardizes any pension promise. Congress considered and passed:
A measure that would for the first time allow the benefits of current retirees to be severely cut is set to be attached to a massive spending bill, part of an effort to save some of the nation’s most distressed pension plans.
The rule would alter 40 years of federal law and could affect millions of workers, many of them part of a shrinking corps of middle-income employees in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets.
Congress included a bankster bonus feature. Government insured banks will keep their derivatives franchises, which write and sell financial wagers. How many bets will they make on pensions going under? It's derivitable.
Thank heaven Congress is keeping billionaire, bankster and PEU taxes low. America's politicians, for the most part,serve one class. They regularly tell the rest to sod off. For seniors that's could be an early six feet under.