Ebenezer Scrooge lived a really hard life. Abandoned at Christmas at his boarding college, Scrooge discovered to reside for himself.

This method to life led to fantastic economic results. But Scrooge was reviled and had no close friends. And the future, effectively, the future was even darker.

We know all of this mainly because 1 Christmas Eve Scrooge was visited by 3 specters. One particular his previous, 1 his present and the final his future.

What scared him the most was his future. So, he asked the ghostly specter, was this future set in stone, or could it be changed?

Our nation’s future appears burdened by the increasing fees of entitlements. Social Safety, Medicare, and Medicaid will will need to be funded by a shrinking base of workers.

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So, we ask, is this future set in stone, or can it be changed? There are lots of policy wonks sounding the alarm on entitlements. There have also been some politicians.

I say “have been,” as in the previous tense, mainly because suitable now these politicians are operating from their previous words.

In his State of the Union address, President Biden mentioned some Republicans wanted to reduce Social Safety and Medicare. This was promptly met with a shout of “liar” and different attempts to appear shocked and disgusted.

This show suggests that Social Safety appears to be the third rail of politics. And however, with no adjust, the specters have shown us what the future appears like.

President Biden himself has recommended 1 adjust. Wage earners spend six.two% of their incomes to social safety and 1.45% to Medicare. Their employers do the exact same.

Self-employed individuals spend 12.four% and two.9% of their earnings for the exact same trigger. Each forms of earners do not will need to spend the six.two% or 12.four% above an earnings limit.

The president has recommended eliminating the earnings limit. He crossed his heart and hoped to die if he raised taxes on these earnings significantly less than $400,000, so this added tax would apply only when earnings exceed $400,000.

This creates a “donut hole.” The tax ends at a specific level of earnings, and then returns at $400,000. “Hole” earnings are exempt.

But this would nevertheless be a six.two% or 12.four% tax raise for higher earners. That could be a second third rail.

Other people have recommended raising the eligibility age for Medicare, and the “full” retirement age for Social Safety. Just after all, they say, individuals are living longer.

Turns out that lately, Americans have not been living longer. And the Medicare begin age could be increasingly essential offered challenges to getting inexpensive wellness care.

But we will have to do a thing! One particular method that gets surprisingly small interest outdoors of believe tanks is bending the curve on wellness care fees.

Politicians like to inform us that the United States has the greatest wellness care program in the planet. The truth is that it does not. Americans get decrease good quality heath care at larger fees than the rest of the created planet.

Projections of a bankrupt Medicare and Medicaid assume no adjust in the future development of fees. Altering this assumption is a prospective game changer.

There is a thing known as the rule of 72. By dividing 72 by a development price, 1 can ballpark how lengthy it requires for a thing to double in worth.

If wellness care expense grows at eight% per year, it doubles in 9 years (72/9). That signifies quadruple in 18 years and development to 16 instances in 36 years.

At development of six% per year it will double in 12 years and develop by eight instances in 36 years. A development of four% will double in 18 years and quadruple in 36 years.

So if we project wellness care entitlement fees out 36 years, the development in expense can variety from 4 instances existing fees to 16 instances just by altering the annual development assumption from four% to eight%.

What can America do to halve the annual raise in wellness care fees? The capacity to answer this query could be the distinction involving a solvent Medicare and a Scroogian disaster.

The greatest beneficiary of Scrooge’s changed heart was not Scrooge himself, it was Tiny Tim. Probably some inventive options to our future wellness care fees can save lots of additional.

Jim Hamill is the director of Tax Practice at Reynolds, Hix &amp Co. in Albuquerque. He can be reached at jimhamill@rhcocpa.com.