How many entitlement programs have kept up with inflation?

The health insurance mandate is often defended by pointing out that, in current bills, the payment is subsidized up to 400% of the poverty line. I think this is a bad idea politically as it divides the middle class further, but that aside...

How many entitlement programs now pay as much as, or more than, they paid out when they started, adjusting for inflation? In the past 30 years or so, entitlement programs have been "cut" by failure to increase them in line with the real rate of inflation, and through many other small ways that reduce payouts or eliminate recipients.

In such a climate, how can we expect that the (already inadequate) subsidies will not shrink as time goes on? A healthcare subsidy would have to match not just the rate of inflation, but the exorbitant rate at which healthcare costs grow.

That one really needs to be fixed.

Pretty much nothing across the board.

Oh, that one is working well above the inflation rate

After all, think of the spectacular yacht races and shows that have been made possible thanks to this generous public expenditure!

;)

Not just by inflation but because they can be cut in the event that health care costs go up. The plan has to be "revenue neutral". Yet people on DU have a fervent belief in the magic of mandates and subsidies. It's like they cannot imagine a Republican regime coming into power and cutting the subsidies.

the rest of us will be reduced to a 3rd world standard of living, "to keep our costs globally competitive"

EMPIRE.

We're all safer, eh?

According to the CBO and JCT analysis of Baucus subsidies will go down because of a "failsafe" provision in the bill:


exchange subsidies would be automatically adjusted to avoid the estimated increase in the deficit for that year


and they are already expecting to need the "failsafe" mechanism:


Under CBO and JCT’s estimates of the deficit impact for the proposal, the failsafe provisions would require a reduction in exchange subsidies averaging about 15 percent during the years 2015 through 2018.



http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10642/10-7-Baucus_letter.pdf

LOL. Thank you for pointing this out.

It is the Baucus bill though, right? We will see what comes out of the senate.

That was the latest CBO analysis of Baucus. The URL I posted goes to the CBO pdf. I may be misreading it, but it sounds like it automatically reduces subsidies.

they actually put language in this bill saying the public option will never get any bailout for insolvency, which means it is destined to be insolvent since the fucking rates are set by an appointed commissioner. Gee , I wonder what will happen.

Do you mean, "How many entitlement programs have had their minimum cut offs increased to keep up with inflation?"--leaving aside how you measure inflation? That's an empirical question, assuming you take the government's inflation rate as the benchmark. Some have, some haven't.

Or do you mean, "How many entitlement programs have had their rate of increase at least equal to the rate of inflation?" Again, if you take the government's published inflation rate as the benchmark, most have exceeded the rate of inflation. Hell, most have exceeded the rate of growth of the government's budget, which is above the published rate of inflation.

Of course, you also have to sort out what you mean by "entitlement". Are Pell Grants an entitlement?

Some of the increase is because they've covered additional groups. Some is because what they cover is simply more expensive. Some variation is due to the number of people that fall under a program's purview--an important point to keep in mind.

In some cases the entitlement's been curtailed in practice. In other cases, the entitlement was rolled into some other program.

Some haven't kept pace with inflation over the last year. Things like Pell Grants, for instance. Some failed to keep pace with inflation for a time, say in the late '70s or early '80s.

My point: It's hard to say. As with most things, the answer is, "Some do, some don't."

It has to be because I'm not sure what I should ask, more specifically.

I am leery of the "official" inflation rate, but it is official and is what we have to work with for the sake of argument.

I'm trying to figure out what the proportion is among programs that pay for essentials. I want to know whether payments to individuals retain the same value as when the program started. Food stamps, Welfare, SS. I think as an "Essential" health care falls between those three and Pell grants. The less "necessary" they are, the less important they are in determining the trend that healthcare subsidies might join into. I am not interested in the overall size of a program, just the value of what it pays out to recipients.

There is a lot to look at. SS has changed immensely and for many reasons since it was created, but I had to ask how programs have done "since their creation" as a broad question. I'm interested in the long averages as well, but moreso in the political climate of the last thirty years.