.floatimg-left-hort { float:left; } .floatimg-left-caption-hort { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:300px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatimg-left-vert { float:left; margin-top:10px; margin-right:15px; width:200px;} .floatimg-left-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; font-size: 12px; width:200px;} .floatimg-right-hort { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px;} .floatimg-right-caption-hort { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 300px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimg-right-vert { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px;} .floatimg-right-caption-vert { float:left; margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; font-size: 12px; } .floatimgright-sidebar { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 200px; border-top-style: double; border-top-color: black; border-bottom-style: double; border-bottom-color: black;} .floatimgright-sidebar p { line-height: 115%; text-indent: 10px; } .floatimgright-sidebar h4 { font-variant:small-caps; } .pullquote { float:right; margin-top:10px; margin-left:10px; margin-bottom:10px; width: 150px; background: url(http://www.dmbusinessdaily.com/DAILY/editorial/extras/closequote.gif) no-repeat bottom right !important ; line-height: 150%; font-size: 125%; border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} .floatvidleft { float:left; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} .floatvidright { float:right; margin-bottom:10px; width:325px; margin-right:10px; clear:left;} Dear Mr. Berko:

Dear S.C.:

If I lined up 1,000 people, I suspect you would be the one most likely to die in a trailer park fire or while replacing the shocks on a pickup truck. Our national debt will increase by $3 trillion, but read on.

Not a single member of our cherished, virtuous Congress or their overpaid staffs have mentioned the mega-huge tax increases that will be necessary to finance our health-care bill. And not one of our manicured, pedicured and coiffed congresspeople noted that, in 10 years, there will be fewer workers to pay into the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) and even fewer to support FICA 10 years after that. This is the reason Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are in such deep doo-doo today.

In 2000, FICA’s Old Age Survivors Disability Insurance (OASDI) tax of 6.2 percent had a ceiling of $76,200 plus a 1.45 percent Medicare-Medicaid Tax (MMT) on every cent, centime and centavo you earned, without limit. Today the OASDI tax is still 6.2 percent, but the ceiling is $106,800 and, of course, there’s no ceiling for the 1.45 percent MMT. So this year, an employee earning $106,200 will pay $8,125 in FICA. And your employer, unless he’s from Nebraska, will pay an identical amount.

Now, it’s no secret that OASDI, the MMT and the ceiling have been raised numerous times during the last 30 years, and it’s certain as sin that 10 years hence, they will have been raised a few more times. The “guesstimate” is that the 6.20 percent OASDI will be raised to 8.95 percent, the MMT will be raised to 3.25 percent, and the ceiling will be increased to $205,000. So if you’re earning $125,000 in 2020, you’ll pay 12.2 percent or $15,250 into FICA, and your employer (except for Nebraskans) will pay the same amount. However, if you’re self-employed and earn $205,000, you’ll pay $50,000 in FICA taxes, thanks to TARP or Those Awful, Reviled Politicians. And not a peep from even one of TARP in Congress.

Now our noble, incorruptible and plain-speaking congresspeople who passed this health-care bill either ignored or failed to consider the following: There are 800,000 doctors in the United States and 126 medical schools, with an average class size of 159 students in each of their first-, second-, third- and fourth-year classes. About 18,000 docs retire each year, so they must be replaced. We must also train 6,000 new docs annually to serve the increase in our nation’s population. This demands an average class size of 191 students, which really pushes the envelope.

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the health-care bill will demand 159,000 new docs by 2025, which translates to 10,600 additional docs a year plus the usual 24,000 we now train. This increases each med school’s class enrollment by 84 students a year, and there isn’t a med school I know, unless it’s in Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Nigeria or Haiti, that can process those numbers. And unfortunately, there are not 10,600 highly qualified new applicants who want to become doctors, especially under the administration’s earnings restrictions.

As a result, we can expect the following consequences: (1) Med schools will lower their standards; (2) class size will explode; (3) course content and tests will be dumbed down; (4) future docs will not be as well trained as current docs; (5) lawyers will have a “field decade” because declining medical skills from second-rate medical care translates to increased lawsuits; and (6) insurance rates will explode and we will be back whence we started in 2010.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 8303, Largo, FL 33775 or e-mail him at mjberko@yahoo.com. © 2010 Creators.Com