Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20240622

Im talking to the v. A. And i asked them that question, is the v. A. Being in the Veterans Administration, is that considered health care. Bottom line is where im getting at is so i dont have to pay the penalty on my taxes, if im a member of the v. A. , is that considered health care, and theyre telling me they got a whole lot of calls about that same question and they are still waiting to hear back from the irs. They dont know if its considered health care if youre in the v. A. System. Wondering by chance if your guest has any idea. So there are a couple of different kinds of benefits that you can get through the Veterans Administration so some people have disability benefits and some people get health care. I think there are some other services, too. I dont know exactly what it is that you have signed up for, but if you are getting a Health Benefit through the v. A. , you are able to use their doctors and hospitals, that should count as Health Insurance under obamacare and you shouldnt have to worry about paying a tax penalty. David in miami, florida, line for republicans. David, good morning. David, turn down your tv. Go ahead with your question or comment. Caller im sorry about that. My good man, we have been wondering, i mean my and my friends were wondering, we were sitting down watching this show, and what i was wondering is that what are those we will go on to john in crofton, maryland, line for republicans. John, good morning. Caller good morning. Im interested in your name. Are you any relationship to the founder of planned parenthood . I am not. No. But my family is also from new york so i get asked that question a lot. Caller okay. Well, what was her first name . Was it margo or margaret . Margaret. Caller thats why i asked. I thought that was the difference. Anyway, you were saying you only have figures on Health Care Costs to the government for 2014 and so they are almost a year behind or at least a half year behind in reporting the costs. Im sure that probably had gone up even over 2014 or else we would have heard about it. But you will remember before health care was passed, i think you said it passed in 2010, i think it was march of 2010 when nancy pelosi gave herself a birthday gift. She had turned 70 then and so for five years, weve got obamacare and im sick of hearing it called Affordable Health care because its not. The costs have gone up. The president promised that if you liked your health care plan, you can keep it, you like your doctor, you can keep it, and for a family of four, it should go down by about average of 2400 and thats a lie. Most people are paying more. People are opting to pay the penalty. Its gone to the Supreme Court twice. Both times, chief Judas Roberts found a way to say its constitutional. What are your views on the constitutionality of obamacare snnchlg . Im not a lawyer and certainly not a Supreme Court justice so i dont feel comfortable weighing in on the constitutionality of obamacare. I do think the Supreme Court is the final authority on this question and they have ruled on it. Several years ago they said the law was constitutional. I think the law is in place and i think my role as a reporter is to think about what does it mean and what is it doing to the American Economy and to Peoples Health and wellbeing. Those are the kinds of questions that i focus on. So i just wanted to come back to one thing you said which is that people are paying more and more because thats what we were just talking about. It is certainly true that Health Care Spending has increased every year since the Affordable Care act passed but also, as i said before, the last few years have been marked by the slowest growth in Health Care Spending on record. So its a little bit of a complicated picture. It is true that people are paying more and in a lot of cases, individual people, because their particular Health Insurance has a higher deductible, they are feeling more of the Health Care Burden being placed on their shoulders. But as a nation, the rate at which Health Care Spending is growing is at a record low. I think thats just an important context to understand. I dont think that its slowed necessarily because of the Affordable Care act. There are other factors that may explain it. But its important to remember that Health Care Spending growth has been very high since the government was involved in health care in any sense. The New York Times a great place to go for the numbercrunching we have been talking about on this issue of the overall increase in Health Care Spending ticked up 5. 5 in this country last year. Is that expected to continue . What are the projections for the future . What the medicare actuaries project is that spending is going to be at about 5. 8 on average over the next ten years so its going to be, if their estimates are correct which we will find out over time, it will be going a little bit faster than it has over the last few years. Thats certainly faster than inflation or wages are expected to grow so people will continue to feel Like Health Care is consuming a larger and larger part of their budget. Whanchlg what are the implications for that if health care grows faster than Economic Growth in this country . Health care will come to represent a larger part of our economy. Thats what we have seen over the last few decades. It used to be one out of every 10 was spent on health care, now its more like 1 out of every 5. In some ways that makes sense. As a country gets richer and as people get richer, they think about what are their priorities that they want to spend their money on, being healthier and living a longer and more comfortable life, that actually seems like maybe a pretty good thing to spend your money on. But there of course comes a point at which Health Care Spending represents so much spending that its really crowding out other things that people want to spend their money on and that the government wants to spend its money on. So i think the growing cost of health care is a problem that the country really needs to think about. Lets go to donna waiting in springfield, missouri, line for independents. Donna, youre on with Margo Sanger Katz. Caller thank you. My question is in regard to the differences between medicare and Medicare Advantage as far as what our government puts into each of those categories. Early on, i understood that we were putting more money into the Medicare Advantage side than we were into the traditional medicare, and i was told that that would probably begin to decrease with the idea of fading out the difference that we are financially putting into each of those categories. I wonder whats our current status with that . So that is accurate. Medicare advantage is an option for people who enroll in medicare if they want to get a private plan thats more like an hmo from an insurer, they could choose that instead of just getting the traditional government medicare plan. And theres a complicated formula that describes how the government pays for those plans. They essentially pay per person a set amount to the Insurance Company for covering each senior who signs up for those plans, and it is true that when the program started they actually paid per person a pretty hefty premium on top of what they believed they would have paid in traditional medicare, and the Affordable Care act sort of narrowed that gap. I dont know what the exact number is right now but my understanding is that for each person in Medicare Advantage, Medicare Advantage plan gets a teeny bit more than what a traditional medicare plan might have paid for that person but its a much smaller difference than it used to be. Overall, the government still spends more money on traditional medicare than on Medicare Advantage because more people are enrolled in traditional medicare and because its an older population that tends to be in traditional medicare so they are a little bit sicker than the people in Medicare Advantage. Might be a good time to ask social lists question from twitter. Can you compare costs in the private Insurance Market versus medicare versus the v. A. . I dont know the answer for the v. A. Im just not an expert in that. But again, as i said, this has been a period of record slow spending growth in health care and that has been reflected in Health Insurance, too. So last year, we saw growth in private Health Insurance premiums of 3 which is basically unprecedented. I think its tied for the lowest rate of growth ever. And in the Government Program similarly, growth has been incredibly slow. In medicare, the costs have been basically flat for the last few years. It looks like its going to go up a little bit for next year. Got about 25 minutes left in this segment with Margo Sanger Katz of New York Times upshot columnist answering all your questions about Health Care Spending in this country. Joseph is up next, orlando, florida, line for democrats. Joseph, good morning. Caller good morning. My comment is this. When i was a College Student in the early 70s, i worked a new york City Summer Program after john lindsay and i was assigned to the board of health. We were investigating fraud in medicaid. It was kind of an eyeopening experience to me, you know. I came to realize that it seemed like a lot of providers were just ripping off the system and there were not too many consequences, quite frankly. And i think thats a really serious issue thats not getting enough attention. Its almost become part of the culture build where providers feel they can manipulate all these schemes, keep double books, things like that at the hospitals. Not enough i believe is still there is not enough still being done to prosecute and stop that kind of ripoff. Thank you. Fraud and abuse. I think fraud and abuse are pretty substantial problems in both the medicare and medicaid program. I think they also are a problem in private insurance, quite frankly. The government as part of the Affordable Care act did step up the dollars that were devoted to enforcement and there have been some collaborations with the department of justice to try to go after Medicare Fraud in particular, and they have been collecting sort of record recoveries through those efforts. I think there also has been some efforts to try to prevent more fraud before it happens. Historically what the government has done is they have seen that theres an irregularity and followed it over time and investigated and then gone into say a fraudulent doctor and said you know, you have committed fraud, we are going to prosecute you and try to get the money back. I think theres an effort now to say what are the things we can do to try to prevent fraud from happening ahead of time. I think there are mixed reviews on those efforts. A lot of critics of the government feel too much fraud has happened and is only found after the fact but i think there have been some steppedup efforts to address fraud in these programs. But its substantial. I think estimates are that maybe as much as 10 of medicare spending is on fraudulent activities. You mentioned estimates. Some new numbers out this week on enrollments through the Affordable Care act. The special Enrollment Period, those numbers coming out yesterday. First explain when a special Enrollment Period, who it applied to and what the numbers were. Sure. The way that obamacare works in general is if you want to sign up for one of these private plans theres a set period during the year that you have to sign up during, and im sure that many callers saw that they have a lot of advertisements and people talk a lot about this open Enrollment Period. Then if you dont sign up during that Enrollment Period you basically have to wait until next year. Thats how it works for most people. But the law gives opportunities for people who become uninsured during the course of the year or have some other major life change, they can sign up any time of the year. So if you have a child, if you get married, if you lose your insurance through work, if you are covered through say medicaid and the government says you are no longer eligible, then you have a short window in which you can sign up for insurance. This year, the government also created a special category. So people who had been uninsured in 2014 and had failed to sign up during the open Enrollment Period this year, when they were filing their taxes, if they learned for the first time that they really needed to have insurance, then they got this extra window. So what the report that came out yesterday said is that about 950,000 people took advantage of this special Enrollment Opportunity during some time of the year. So a small percentage of those were these people who paid the tax penalty. Most of them were just people who got married or lost their job or had some other change in their life circumstances and you know, i think its important to note that the Affordable Care act is not just designed to insure people who were persistently uninsured and didnt have insurance for a long time but also to help people who have changes in their lives like this. So the fact that almost a Million People signed up during the year is a sign that that part of the law seems to be working, too. Was there any expectations, any bar setting by the federal government on what those numbers would be . I dont think they have had any kind of estimates. In general, most of the estimates from the government and also from the Congressional Budget Office which does some forecasts, theyre really looking at whats the average enrollment over the course of the year as opposed to in these different categories. That makes sense because just in the same way that someone could lose their job during the year and lose their insurance, someone who had been covered under an Obamacare Program might get a new job and get insurance. There is some movement throughout the year kind of in and out of these programs. So what the government is really looking at is whats the overall kind of average enrollment. Back to the phones. Thomasville, georgia is up next. Scott is on the line for republicans. Good morning, scott. Caller good morning. I had a comment. Regarding the Affordable Care act. A lot of the cost in the Affordable Care act have been delayed such as the cadillac tax. When that came out i always assumed that was just for unionized companies in the northeast and wouldnt affect maybe 10 of the plans of the whole. We read now that the cadillac tax which is 40 , 40 excise tax, will affect half, one half of all group health plans. So we know theres going to be a dramatic increase. Now, thats not for two years, but still, when youre doing this oh, were going to have a 4 , 5 growth rate over the next ten years, thats not even feasible. Especially in light of the fact that we know that we have three million hepatitis c, people that are infected with hepatitis c, and we know the cost to cure those people is 100,000 per person. Do that math. I cant do it. I just know it probably doubles your health care cost. Thats something that was unforeseen when the 2010 plan was put in, but certainly when you put off all the real costs for political reasons, of course, you know, you cant deal with things you didnt know about because you imbedded all these costs. I would like your comment on that, please. Delayed costs under the aca. Yeah. Things like the hepatitis c drug are actually a really good example of the way medical advancement has happened throughout history which is new technologies come along that make it possible for us to cure and treat diseases that we couldnt cure or treat before, and they do tend to be more expensive. You know, that is that tradeoff i was talking about before where yeah, it makes health care more expensive but also, it offers people potentially Better Health and longer lives. So as a country we have to weigh those things. Those hepatitis c drugs are very expensive and as you said, a lot of people have this disease and so a lot of them are going to have to be treated. But the drugs you talked about also appear to offer a cure for a chronic disease that cause people a lot of lifetime suffering. Its complicated. These are difficult questions that i think we as a country have to wrestle with but it is not just that this costs more and certainly, the fact that this drug was developed in the last few years is not the fault of the Affordable Care act. This is just the sort of things that happens as medicine advances over time. Lets go to billings, montana on our line for independents. Eric is waiting. Good morning, eric. Caller good morning. I wanted to make a quick reference to the previous caller who mentioned the v. A. I have also been led to understand being a veteran and being in the system that it is in fact, qualifies as health care so that you wont be paying any penalties. We are obviously in a health care crisis. There are all together too Many Americans who dont have health care. I personally know some who have benefited contrary to the assertion of the previous caller. But i also understand that many other people have seen their costs rise. This is something that we are going to have to experiment with. Some solution is better than none, and going back to square one i dont think is a viable option. And on a larger scale, i would say that how can we consider ourselves a first world nation in terms of first world meaning developed country, third world meaning developing, how can we consider ourselves that when virtually every other socalled first world nation does offer their citizens some form of health care . I think we need to go forward with this in some fashion and once again, im sure that experimentation will come up with a uniquely american solution but i would very much like your comments on that. Thank you. So it is true the United States is relatively unusual among kind of western democracies and developed countries generally that we dont offer universal Health Insurance coverage or Health Care Financing of some sort. The Affordable Care act i think was an attempt to try to expand Health Insurance to people who didnt have it before. There are a lot of things about the american system that are different from the rest of the world but that is one thing thats different and i think thats an argument that people who support the law often make, that there is a social benefit to providing insurance to people who didnt have it before. And there were numbers out this week from the Gallup Polling Organization that show and also numbers from the centers for Disease Control that showed that the percentage of americans without Health Insurance is at its lowest rate ever. It keeps going down. Its clear the Affordable Care act may raise costs and there may be other problems with it and we will continue to have a political debate about that, but i think it is very clear that the Affordable Care act has succeeded in allowing a lot of people who couldnt get Health Insurance before to get that coverage. Lots of callers waiting in the last 10 or 15 minutes. We will try to get as many as we can. Ben is up in macon, kentucky, line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. Yes. I would like to know how come when i got Social Security and when i signed up, i didnt take the part a and b. Now i need it and they wont penalize me and charge me 400 some a month. I only draw 1100. How am i supposed to get insurance . This is part of the design of medicare. Its a little like those open Enrollment Periods for the Health Care Exchanges i talked about before. What they want is for people to get insurance and stay insured for as long as theyre eligible and not wait until they have some kind of illness to sign up because if everyone waited until they were sick to get insurance, then it would be really expensive. So in an attempt to get people to sign up while theyre still healthy, medicare does charge a penalty. I think in the part d program, in the drug program, if you sign up late. Then there are different prices that different people have to pay for part a and part b which are the parts that cover hospital care and physician services. Part a i think there is no premium for. So i think you should be able to sign up for that no problem. Then part b, which covers physician services, it can be pretty expensive to pay those premium answ premium and you may suffer some sort of penalty for waiting. Marshall, texas, kevin, line for republicans. Go ahead, kevin. Caller good morning. About the costs. I have read from some reputable sources that really, you cant judge the way the prices are going in health care based on the Affordable Care act, that really it takes several years for a policy to affect prices. As one caller already noted, really, a lot of obamacare has been postponed and delayed so really, it could be several years before we really see a change due to that. And in your study, you noted that people were using health care more. Well, thats going to drive up demand, it makes sense if people have access to health care, theyre going to use it as much as they can, whereas when i used to have to pay out of pocket, you know, i would measure how sick i was before i went to the doctor. Well, if i got insurance and i know its covered, im going to use it so unless theres a big increase in surgeons and physicians, the price has got to go up. And i think its kind of funny we call it the Affordable Care act and you keep saying how well, actually its adding costs. Margo sanger katz, any thoughts on his view of how he would use the system or does use the system . I think actually thats a really good description of why we see in this research that when people get Health Insurance they use health care more. Health care is really expensive. So when people have to pay out of pocket, they may postpone care or may avoid care. Then when they have insurance it gives them Financial Security and that allows them to go to the doctor. Thats sort of both good and bad. People may go to the doctor when they dont really need to and that leads to costs that maybe are unnecessary but a lot of times people go to the doctor when theyre really sick and its good they have the ability to do that without hurting their bank accounts. We talked about the federal exchange so far in the show. Before we run out of time, want to ask you, after the Supreme Court decision, you wrote an article that that decision opened the door for state exchanges to be replaced by the federal exchange. Can you explain why that is . Its a really interesting thing. When the Affordable Care act was written i think there was this idea that all the states would want to run their own Insurance Marketplaces because states like to have control over their local Health Policy and states have a long history of regulating insurance products. And so the law allowed them to all set up their own exchanges but it created this fallback. It said if the state fails to do it, the federal government will step in and run some of these functions for the states. And to a lot of peoples surprise, what happened is that very few states actually went ahead and started their own exchanges. Most of the states ended up in this federal system. And you know, as we saw last year and we saw again this year, it just turns out that running one of these Health Insurance exchanges is really, really difficult. Its technologically complicated. Theres a lot of logistics involved. It requires a lot of management. And its pretty expensive. There are some economies of scale that seem to flow from it. If you are doing it for a lot of people its cheaper than doing it for just a few people in your state. As you may remember, the Supreme Court case, the court decided a few months ago, was about whether federal subsidies for individuals on the exchange could go to every state or only states that were running it. That question is kind of off the table, whether your state has a federal exchange or a state exchange, youre still eligible for subsidies to help you buy Health Insurance if your income is low. So what that means is that states dont have to hold on to these state exchanges anymore if they dont want to. There is some evidence they are going to start to give them up because they just found them to be very difficult and expensive to manage. Who are the states that seem most likely to give them up if they do . So there are two that come to mind immediately. One is hawaii which basically essentially has already given up its exchange because it had so many technological problems, it couldnt get it to work. Another one is vermont which is just finding the cost of managing its exchange is so high that they just dont know if they can justify it or if the legislature wants to continue to pay for it. Is it more likely smaller population states . Yeah. It seems like the really big states are doing okay. California and new york i think are both examples of states that are running their own exchanges and seem really committed to continuing to do that and seem to be having some success and sustainability. A lot of other states, especially smaller states, are more kind of on the fence about what to do next. Back to the phones. David is in ocala, florida, line for independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. Good morning, margo. Young lady. Hello . Go ahead, david. We can hear you. Caller im sorry. I was wondering about this, all right . Each one of the businesses that help this medical have what they call a pricing book. We all know that here, that theres a pricing book. Thats the one item that no one will ever bring up or talk about is the pricing book that each one of the billing departments have that bill you for your bill. Now, you cant do anything or tell us anything proper if you dont bring out that book that charges you 10 for an aspirin and all the ridiculous things that it charges for. If you dont start at the beginning, you can speculate all day long about what you may think is going on. I know whats going on. That pricing book that you never put out in front of the american public, show us one. Then let us look at the pricing book. Its kind of like its for the Armed Services and its a hammer, it could cost 500. I would like to hear the answer to the fact of how do we start a conversation in the middle of a conversation without starting a conversation at the very beginning . Youre talking about money. Youre talking about billing. They have billing books. We all know that the Insurance Company bats back and forth between these people how much theyre going to charge. Usually i get charged 100 because i dont have insurance and the billing, okay, they argue with the Insurance Company so much that its anywhere between 56 and 60. Got your point, david. A plea for transparency from david in ocala, florida. I think its one of the the things about the american system thats unusual and that is kind of troubling for people is that its really unclear what the prices are for a lot of medical services and also that people dont all pay the same amount. So if you have Health Insurance, your Health Insurer and say the hospital where you get your care, they negotiate every couple years and they set up a contract where they say okay, if you come in for appendicitis surgery, we will pay this amount, and medicare, the Government Program that covers a lot of people over the age of 65, they negotiate a different price with the hospital. So theres lots of different prices that are paid by different people. If you are uninsured often you get stuck with a really big, outrageous bill. You dont know what its going to be in advance and you dont have the ability to negotiate that some other entities do. I think the prices in the American Health care system are a problem for two reasons. One is that theres no transparency. People dont know. So even to the degree that they are able to shop and want to shop for the best quality care and the lowest cost care, they just cant get the information. The other thing is if you compare the u. S. To the other countries we were talking about before, it turns out that the u. S. Is different not just because we dont cover everyone, but also because we just charge way more for health care than any other country and its part of the reason why we have such an expensive system. I think there is wasteful care in our system, there is unnecessary care and that leads to costs, too, if people are Getting Health Care they dont need. The biggest difference researchers find between the u. S. System and the system in other parts of the world is that we just pay more for each individual service than other countries do. Lets head out to connersville, indiana. Gary is waiting on the line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. Good morning to you, maam. I just want to say with all the hodgepodge of complications that abound within this particular issue and other experiences as well, you know, i got to tell you, man, the aca seems like a defeated purpose, you know . Its like if youre not going to get charged out the nose one way, its going to be another. I look forward to president sanders and i like the sound of it, getting this thing done, getting through with universal health care, you know. That previous caller was right about the lack of transparency, too. That was a great point he brought up. Thats all i want to say. Yall have a great weekend. Gary brings up senator sanders. Can you talk a little bit about the latest discussion on the campaign trail revolving around the Affordable Care act . One of the things i think is really interesting is that i have been covering health care in politics for a number of years and this election, it seems Like Health Care is being talked about a lot less. I think part of the reason is that the Affordable Care act is here, kind of the new normal. I think as some callers pointed out it will be awhile before we really know all the answers to how its performing but i think people are kind of getting used to it. So there are certainly still criticisms. The republican candidates, almost all of them have said they want to repeal obamacare and replace it with something else. Democratic candidates have talked about ways they want to improve the Affordable Care act. But youre just not seeing really detailed policy proposals. Youre not seeing the kind of intensity around this issue that we have seen in previous elections. Im really looking forward to following this issue on the campaign and seeing what kinds of proposals the candidates put forward so that we can analyze them and talk about what theyre going to mean for americans. But its a little early yet. There hasnt been speaks fis tich specific specificity. Crystal is up next, blue springs, missouri, line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just hearing everything would like to make a couple comments. The first comment is i do agree with the lack of transparency for costs because it can cost thousands of dollars to go to a very basic check or to a small emergency or minor emergency issue, and it is unattainable. So my question is, if the government is trying to cut costs and be logical about cutting costs, why are they taking on expenses such as sex changes . And transgender issues . I feel like those things need to be handled on a personal level. So you know, there are certain kinds of services that like often get talked about a lot because they are rare and really expensive, and certain people feel like they shouldnt be covered by insurance. But i think when you look at the overall costs of health care in this country, those things are are really on the margins. Very few people are having gender reassignment surgery or some of these other really expensive procedures. Most health care in america is taking care of people who have kind of more common diseases, people who have a baby or people who have cancer or people who have lung disease or heart disease. So if we want to think about how to make Health Care System more affordable for the whole country, i think any solution to that question has to really encompass the kinds of services that are really common, try to figure out how we can keep the people healthy from the kinds of diseases that affect a lot of people. It doesnt mean there shouldnt be discussions about what is and isnt covered on the margins but i think sometimes theres too much focus on certain kinds of very high Cost Services and not enough discussion about what we can do about problems that are more common and that in aggregate end up being very expensive. Lets see if we can get in mary from massachusetts on the line for independents, who has been waiting. Can you make it quick . Caller yeah. Im calling because there is legislation thats been written, was written in 2003 by representative john conyers called, its labeled hr676 and it would expand medicare to all. I dont understand how the media continues to ignore the fact that there is a Single Payer Health Care Movement that is vibrant in this country, very much so in massachusetts, and gets nothing but resistance from the media to be to receive any coverage whatsoever. So i would like to ask you to pay some attention to Single Payer Health care. Thank you. Single Payer Movement in this country . Yeah. I think there are certainly are people in america who really feel like a single payer solution is better than the system we have right now where you have a lot of different kinds of insurers and private entities and people who are left out. I think she points out medicare which i think is a really good example of a single payer that we have for people in this country who are older than 65. In general, if you have medicare, medicare pays all the hospitals for all of your medical costs, they pay the same price to everyone and they are sort of a more central system and more standardization in the way Health Benefits work for people who are over 65 than there are for the rest of us. But you know, we had a big debate a few years ago about Health Care Reform in this country and the Affordable Care act is the law that passed. There is no reason theoretically why a single payer option couldnt have passed except that it seems like the politics werent right for it. There wasnt enough support in this country for that particular solution and you know, well see over time how Health Reform evolves and whether that kind of idea of having a more single payer system is something that becomes more popular, but i think its pretty clear right now in america, its just, there are people who support it but most americans do not support that kind of solution. Margo sanger katz writes for the upshot section of the New York Times. You can see her latest piece, no giving more people Health Insurance doesnt save money. Check it out at the New York Times website. Appreciate your time this morning. Later in todays show, we will look at the foster care system in the United States with rob jeanne of the ann e. Casey foundation. Next, today marks Social Securitys 80th birthday. We will discuss how long Social Security benefits will be around in this country and what you can do to prepare for retirement with cnbcs Sharon Epperson. Heres a look back at president roosevelt signing the Social Security act into law. In 1935, franklin d. Roosevelt put his signature on the Social Security act. This Social Security measure gives at least some protection to 50 millions of our citizens who will reap direct benefit through unemployment compensation, through old age pensions and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health. 15 years later, Congress Passed a new Social Security law, a law designed to meet todays needs, signed by president truman in 1950. This act gives Social Security a new meaning for you. And so today, this is the portrait of the future. A picture which Social Security helped make possible. Under the Social Security act, most American Families are now able to ensure for themselves n income that is guaranteed for life. An income provided not by charity or relief, but by federal old age and survivors insurance. Insurance that is bought and paid for. 80 years ago today in 1935, president Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security act into law. We are marking the occasion by talking about the future of the system and taking your retirement questions with Sharon Epperson, cnbcs Senior Personal finance correspondent. Miss epperson, Social Security turns 80 today. What do you think its chances are of making it to its 100th birthday . I think the chances are very good. I mean, there are some concerns about whether or not the trust fund will be available for everyone in 2034 is what theyre saying is when it may be depleted but there will still be benefits available to people. The question that many raise is what changes will have to be made longerterm to make sure that Social Security is still there for the next hundred years. For our viewers, give us a quick reminder of how Social Security is funded, how that works. Well, Social Security of course is taken out of your paycheck. You know that its based on the 35 years that youre working throughout your career, different jobs that youve had, and they calculate it based on that work history. Now, of course, it is taken out based on a certain amount of your pay. If you make a certain amount over a level thats close to 120,000, then that Social Security payment that you put into it stops. But youre building up your Social Security benefits based on what youre paying into the system during your working years. And then when you retire, when you reach the full retirement age, at 65 for many 66 or 67, then you will be able to get your full Social Security benefit. Right now thats a little over 2,000 a year. In your opinion, if changes do come in the future to help keep Social Security afloat, do you think they are going to come from increased payroll taxes or from decreasing the amount of benefits, looking ahead to the 2034 and 35 and beyond . I think some of things that theyre looking at, those are two that may happen but i think another one thats being looked at very carefully is the age that where you are able to get your full Social Security benefit and raising that retirement age, that full retirement age. Thats another way that many are suggesting we would be able to have more money in the system. Speaking of ages for our viewers, we are splitting up our phone lines by age this morning. If you want to talk about the future of Social Security or have questions about your retirement planning, Sharon Epperson of cnbc is here to answer those questions. If you are under 30, the phone number this morning, 2027488000. If you are 30 to 50, 7488001. 50 and over, 2027488002. We will look for your questions, your calls this morning. Sharon epperson, before we get to calls, who should be most worried about potentially seeing cuts to their benefits in their future . Which one of those phone lines . Well, of course, the Younger Generation and the millenials are always very concerned about whether or not Social Security is going to be there for them. Its a generation that is probably most wanting to see some type of guaranteed income for them. So its kind of unfortunate that study after study shows that millenials, people between 18 and 35, really looking forward to one day having some guaranteed stream of income but the question is whether or not Social Security will be there for them in the form that we are seeing today, and the benefits that folks are able to get today. So that is a big concern. Thats why i think a lot of young people are trying to come up with other ways they can get steady income. With cnbc you do a lot of work helping people prepare for retirement. What are your suggestions for how viewers should calculate their potential Retirement Benefits . What are the key considerations, in your mind . Well, you know, there are Social Security benefits of course, but there are overall Retirement Benefits. We really have to think of Social Security as just a part and in some cases a small part of what your overall Retirement Savings strategy should be. Of course, if you are working and even if you are not working, if you have a spouse who is able to put money into a retirement account for you, very very important to save monthly, to save biweekly, with every paycheck, every year, making sure you are saving as much as you can of your own money for retirement, and doing that as early as possible and as frequently as possible. That means contributing up to the companys matching contribution in your 401 k plan. That also means taking out if you are eligible a roth i. R. A. , opening that account and funding that to the maximum which for many people is 5500 this year, 6500 if youre 50 or older. Then also, if you have extra money, putting that money in an account that is earmarked for your retirement. Putting yourself first, really, paying yourself first. We have heard that before. It is so very important. But when you have children as i do, you want to provide for them, you want to give them the best, you want to save for college for them. But you really have to think about your retirement needs first. There is no scholarship for your retirement so its very important that you start saving now, save early, save regularly and if you just are starting to save its not too late. There are catchup contributions for you but you will have to be really really diligent about making sure you cut expenses so that you have enough money to save for your retirement. Sharon epperson of cnbc is our guest this morning. For about the next 40 minutes on washington journal. I should note she also hosts a weekly original cnbc digital video program, retire well, which focuses on retirement issues, the same issues we are focusing on this morning. Happy to take your calls and questions on. We will start with bonnie on that line for the under 30. Bonnie is in georgetown, kentucky. Good morning, bonnie. Youre on washington journal. Caller im wanting to say this morning that someone put me down as under 30 but i dialed in the over 50 because im 77. Happy to take your call, too. Go ahead. Caller im just really concerned, im a freak to watch tv. I watch you all the time, i watch the senate and everybody. Social security was taken out of our check. My dad was working very much in 1935 when it was all signed and he always talked about it. Of course, he drew Social Security when he retired from the coal mines. Im upset because the Social Security fund was taken out of peoples working checks. To me thats like an insurance. Who has the right to go in and change it . Congress has changed it and put it in the general fund. They started using it under Ronald Reagan to pay down the debt in our country. It was used to run the iraq and Afghanistan War and i just dont understand how that congress can go up there with a conscience and take people that worked hard and one of them said [ inaudible ]. I worked for General Motors at the highest rate of pay for 12 years and ive had businesses all my life and i dont draw that. I only draw 1300 a month. And i draw my husbands then. I worked, i didnt even draw that much. When he passed away, i went up to his because i had taken early out at 62 when i retired. But i just cant understand how that people think that all the people on Social Security is drawing Social Security is living so great because i know people that is doing without food just to buy their medicine because their Social Security check doesnt cover it. And i dont think when this law was passed, that this was what it was passed for. It was passed for the working people, that was their money and should have never been taken out of there and used for anything except for the poor or the working poor and thats who pays most of the money in. Thats bonnie in georgetown, kentucky. Sharon epperson, explain this. How and when can the federal government touch money in the Social Security fund . Well, you know, that has been a big concern, bonnie, that the government has gone in and taken money from Social Security and that that trust fund will be depleted by 2034, and that the Disability Fund will be depleted by 2016. Very big concern and its shared by many people. I think the issue, though, at hand is congress will do what congress will do. What will you be able to do with your money. I think many people are very concerned about what does this mean for me at my time right now. You mentioned that youre nowhere near 2,000. I want to be clear that the maximum Social Security benefit is a little over 2,000 that one can receive. Many, many people are just like you, getting well below that monthly benefit and trying to figure out how to make ends meet. That is why it is so important that people also put in their own money for retirement. Yes, you have worked so hard in your businesses, working at a top job, a corporate job, and you should have Social Security to help you. But with the rise we are seeing in the cost of living for many people, that will not be enough for many to live on. That is why its so important to take control of your own retirement and be able to have some of your own Retirement Savings. I know thats very difficult to tell someone who is 77 and is relying on Social Security and the Retirement Income right now. You havent been working for many years, im sure. But it is something that folks who are still working need to think about, that this is not going to be the only money that youre going to be able to live on for your retirement. You are going to have to put some money in on your own and have some stake in the game on your own as well in terms of building your own retirement security. You and the caller both mentioned the Disability Fund. How does that compare with the health of the Social Security fund overall . Well, its obviously if its going to be depleted in 2016 according to the latest report, its not doing as well. And that is a very big concern for a lot of people, millions and millions of people who rely on that fund. Again, there are going to have to be changes made to this to enable people who need it to be able to access this money, and i think that just as theres a big concern about congress allowing some of the funds to be used for other matters, there is going to have to be on the other side people figuring out how it can be there for people who need it. Sharon epperson, cnbcs Senior Personal finance correspondent, taking your calls and questions this morning. Lets go to new york. Tom is waiting on the line for those between 30 and 50. Tom, good morning. Caller perfect time for my call because i was really calling with a similar topic of the previous caller. My question was that is it true that the first time when Congress Actually changed it, it was a separate trust fund but it was the 60s with the cost of the vietnam war to mask the cost of wars, particularly the vietnam war, was when they threw Social Security into the general fund and thats when this all started. The previous caller was referring to the iraq or Afghanistan War but my understanding is this began during the vietnam war. And can all be traced back to need to fund war for our military empire around the globe. The big concern as you mention is that this fund has been used for purposes that many working people did not anticipate. And when we are looking at the wars and looking at what the fund has been used for, that is the deepest concern of so many people. The issue, really, is how can we make sure that going forward, there will be enough Social Security for those in terms of benefits for those who need it, whether its disability benefits or Retirement Benefits, and that i think is the focus and should be the focus of Congress Going forward. Sharon epperson, does it surprise you perhaps the recent gallup polling asking that when individuals retire, how much do he th they expect to rely on Social Security, the numbers showing that those who think it will be a minor source of what theyre going to rely on for their funding at 48 , those who say it will be a major source of their income, just 36 , and those who say its not going to be a source at 14 . Those are the latest polling numbers from earlier this year from gallup. Thats not surprising to me at all. I do meet many working people who dont think its going to be there for them at all. That is i dont think going to be the case, but the fact that they are thinking that way, if it then spurs them to save on their own, maybe a good way to think about it. But there is certainly going to be some form of Social Security out there for many, many people. The issue that its going to be a minor part of your overall savings or overall retirement security, thats the way to think about it, because for many people, its going to have to be the smaller part because its not going to be enough for you to live on and youre going to have to have some other source of income, and thats going to have to come from the savings that youve done along the way on your own. The fact that were seeing many, Many Companies now doing away with pensions, if you were fortunate enough to have one, thats the other steady stream of income of guaranteed income that you can rely on. But for most people, they are now having to fund their retirement on their own and the way to do that is to start saving early. I keep saying it because there is actually no simpler way to do it. Ages 50 and over is the line we are going to go to now. John is in lakeland, florida. John, good morning. Caller yeah, good morning. You had an expert on there once before about Social Security and the money goes from fica, goes into a trust fund, and no wonder why they invested in treasury bills at 2 . Why dont they invest the money in stocks and bonds and Everything Else that are not bonds, but stocks that pay more money and thats my comment. You know, no wonder why theyre going broke. And then the money is taken by the general put in the general fund, you know, so, you know . Thank you. Another question about the management of the fund right now. Thats a very big question and one that many who want to fix Social Security say is perhaps a way to change this system and to have it invested at least a little bit more aggressively than the funds are at this particular time. I think the idea going into it is you want to have the money in instruments as safe as possible. You want the money to be a guaranteed stream of income and you dont want to deal with the major market fluctuations that you would see if the money was invested in stocks and mutual funds and such. Thats the rationale currently. Whether or not that changes down the road, well see. Im doubtful it will be invested any more aggressively because, again, the idea is to make sure that the money is this for people when they need it. Following up on the Disability Fund question, jeff on twitter asks how is the disability portion of Social Security funded . The disability portion of Social Security, you know, again, you have the Disability Fund and you have the general fund for the Retirement Benefits and that Disability Fund is used then for those people who are able to draw on that and show the qualifications that are needed for it. When you go to fsa. Gov very good website to bookmark and actually explain rather well how you could qualify for the disability benefits and what amount may be available to you. The same is true for your Retirement Benefits. Very important to go in there and check and see, make sure you know when is actually your full retirement age and, again, its probably not 65, likely its 66 or 67. When can you withdraw your Social Security to get the full benefit. You can take it early at 62. What will it mean if you delay. A lot of good information at ssa. Gov to find out what those benefits will mean for you when you need them. What do you think people should consider when trying to figure out whether to take benefits early or wait until later . Generally i think its very wise to wait until later. Certainly you can take your Retirement Benefits at 62. But theyll be reduced often as much as 30 of what your full retirement benefit from Social Security could be. So, its important to look at what the benefit would be at 66 or 67. If you are in poor health and youre financially strapped and you need that money right away, then maybe taking at 62 makes sense, but for many people taking at the full retirement age or those who dont need the money right away and can work longer or delay taking that benefit until age 70 could see their monthly benefit increase as much as 8 a year. Thats the ideal thing to do if you can wait, but the majority of people say, hey, i worked hard, we heard it with the first caller and i worked all of these years and i want my money, i want to take it as 62. The government took it, now its mine. That seems to be, you know, what many people think and decide to do. But the reality is youre selling yourself short. You could have actually gotten a lot more money if you had waited. And you look at the difference between taking your Social Security benefit at age 62 versus waiting until age 70, you could see an increase of as much as 76 in your benefit. Now, when its below 2,000 and youre barely getting by, it may not seem like a lot of money that benefit you get at 62 but if you waited until 70 it could have made a big dirgefference. The question what age do you expect to retire, those that expect to prior over 65 at fl37. Up from 1996 when only 14 said they would retire over the age of 65. Those who said they retire under 6532 earlier this year and those that said at 65, just 24 . Lets go to allen on the phones waiting in brooklyn, new york, on the line for 50 and over. Good morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. When they are talking about what kinds of cutting and services will have to be cut to close the gap, it gets me upset that the reasons for the shortfall are really very low. Theres very little discussion about the fact that not only did they borrow against general fund to cut taxes on the rich during the Bush Administration but basically if you compare it to the Bernie Madoff situation when people were told they had windfall profits and afterward they found out the money they thought they had was really illegally gained and they had to return it, there was the idea of a clawback, that this money really was never the property of those who thought they had the wend fall. I view the tax cuts that were given to people financed by money drawn from these trust funds the way i view the money taken to pay investors in the madoff. These moneys should not be viewed as recovered from the wealthy as new taxes but they should be viewed the same way as clawbacks of money that was never really entitled to be taken by the rich who are benefitting from those tax cuts when they had to draw from a trust fund to pay those tax cuts and if people understood this theyd realize were not talking about new taxes, were only talking about justice and return of money that was essentially stolen and i think people ought to discuss it in those terms instead of coming hat in hand to the congress and saying may we raise taxes on the wealthy here. Its not a matter of whether, its a matter of when. Thats allen in brooklyn, new york. Sharon epperson, did you want to comment on that . One of the things i would say to allen one of the fixes that many people are suggesting for Social Security is that the income level to which the benefits that youre paying into Social Security that its raised. Some people have asked and we saw this question, john, on twitter, people saying, well, wait a minute, why are the wealthy do they stop paying into Social Security at 120,000 a year of their salary when they should be continuing to pay as theyre making much more money and so that i would say is one of the fixes that people are saying maybe we should lift that level to 250,000 so youre paying into Social Security and having the taxes taken out until your salary reaches 250,000 or perhaps even higher so that wealthier americans are continuing to pay into the system longer and that is something that many are talking about as a way to perhaps fix the Social Security problem. Lets go to walter on the line for those 50 and over. Walter in culberson, north carolina, good morning, walter. Caller yes, sir, thank you for your expertise on this particular subject. Its miss emerspperson, but ahead, walter. Caller are you hearing me now . Yes. Caller thank you for your expertise on this subject. My pleasure. Caller im a retired businessman and ive owned several businesses in my lifetime, im still part time employed, selfemployed and, of course, i have to pay the 15. 5 in my particular selfemployment business. And i and a bunch of retired and semiretired Business People have often wondered if not a Class Action Lawsuit could be formed against the federal government for those funds that were stolen during the vietnam era and the other eras and put into the general fund that they be recovered and put back into the fund by eliminating real estate assets, the federal government uses no more. I know theres thousands of real Government Property thats just sitting idle. Is this a feasible peossibility . Ill take your answer off the area. Thank you for watching us both and i appreciate your question. I dont really have an opinion on that whether or not that will happen. What i am really curious about and im sorry we lost your call, but as a Business Owner as a semiretired Business Owner my question to you and others that are selfemployed is how much money are you putting away for your own retirement as you are building your business, as youre growing your business and profiting from your business. And what i found is that many Business Owners are very focused on the daytoday of the business and may not be putting enough money away for their own retirement in the many different vehicles that are now available to you to do so. So, if you are selfemployed, have you looked into whether or not you can put money into a sepira, you can most likely but are you doing that . Are you putting money into an individual 401 k that amount of money that you could contribute to these plans is somewhere near 50,000 or more in some cases as the maximum contribution this year. But many people dont necessarily know about it nor are they doing it and some may say i dont really have the funds to do so, but there are many ways for small Business Owners, for selfemployed individuals to put money away for their own retirement in addition to what they are putting in for Social Security so that they will be able to get that as part of their Retirement Savings plan and Retirement Income plan when they are fully retired. Lets go to maryland where angela has been waiting on the line for those between 30 and 50. Angela, good morning. Caller hi, im a realist and i know most people do today rely on Social Security for their income and thats going to be probably more so true in the future for a lot of 20, 30, and 40yearolds due to stagnant wages, cost of health care, the cost of raising a family. I think what people need to do instead of saying its not going to be there or im not going to need it is demand of their poll t politicians, find the money, put it back in, dont raise the retirement age, it will be needed more than it is now. Demand of your pollditio poll to fund Social Security. What should people be doing if they are taking thatted a vees, how should they be saving in the meantime . In the meantime if you are in your 20s you mentioned so many things that are as a young person building starting a family and growing your family and growing your career that are weighing on you in terms of different ways that different places your money is going and different expenses that you have that continue to grow. What many people have to think about, yes, i do think study after study shows that many young people do expect Social Security to be there for them and want to be able to rely on Social Security, want that guaranteed stream of income but the reality is youre going to have to put some away in your own name and youre going to have to figure out how you can save as much as possible and doing that means starting early, figuring out how youre going to live and how youre going to be able to deal with all of the competing forces that are drawing, you know, your money out of your wallet. So, the key here is to really just figure out how much you can start saving on your own now. See how much you can increase that every year. And figure out the best ways to put that money to work for you in different type of tax advantage accounts whether its a roth ir. A. , a regular i. R. A. 401 k at work or as many or all as you can muster. Lets go to the line for the younger viewers. Frank in nashville, tennessee, frank, are you doing what Sharon Epperson was just talking about . How much are you saving for retirement . Caller well, im lucky, i will be able to get a pension thats terrific. Caller and then the 401, i am donating to the max to that. Having the money taken out for that. But thats the thing i wanted to say is that if you dont have a pension, youre going to have to have Social Security most likely if all you have right now is a 401 k because 401 k is selffunded and you have to have enough money to make sure that you have enough to get a monthly check to pay your bills and things like that. So, people now talking about they will not need Social Security. Now, they may not need it if they have a pension, but if they have a 401 or a 403 or whatever, theyll have to have that money and the thing is the way to solve the problem is to raise the cap. All this screaming and hollering about all these conspiracy theories that seem like come from the rightwing people, thats complete nonsense. The thing is, theres fewer people working. So, thats the problem why people having problems with Social Security. It used to be certain amount of people working, and now theres fewer people working going into Social Security. So, the thing is and people are also living a lot longer. So, those are the main problems with Social Security, People Living longer and the fewer workers paying into Social Security and stuff. Frank, to put that in perspective, heres a chart from the Peter Peterson foundation showing workers per beneficiary in Social Security in 1970. It was 3. 7 . 1993 3. 7 workers per beneficiary, in 1993 3. 4 workers. In 2010 2. 9 workers for beneficiary and 2030 expected to be 2. 2 workers per beneficiary. Sharon, let you comment about the callers situation. He brings up a very good point. First of all very fortunate to have a pension and contributing to a 401 k and be able to draw on Social Security. Thats the ideal and thats what many people for many years who were able to have a pension were able to do. We know pensions are going away. As the caller mentioned very important to be putting money into your own 401 k and youll be relying on Social Security as well as supplemental income for your retirement. The fact that there are fewer people who are working is definitely a factor in terms of the ability for there to be more funds in Social Security trust fund. But also the fact that people are living longer means that theyre going to be drawing on that money for a lot longer. And that is a very, very, very important point that we have not talked about and that is securing your Financial Health and your health and wellbeing as a retiree. You want to have Social Security there. Some caller mentioned earlier some people are having trouble being able to afford groceries and medicine on their Social Security check. The Health Care Costs i think people have not realized and really factored in to how much money that will take out of your pocket when youre retired particularly if you have a job that has great Health Insurance and benefits in your working years, the money that you may have to fund on your own for your Health Care Needs particularly if you get sick and if you have a chronic illness can be extremely high. Thats why there are other vehicles to save in terms of saving for your health and to do that early, whether or not thats getting a longterm Care Insurance policy to ensure that youre covered and you have something thats able to pay for your care if you need it if you are unable to care for yourself, or putting something right now into a highdeductible putting money into a Health Savings account that will allow you to save money to pay for your Health Care Needs now and if you dont need it and everything is covered, you dont need the money you dont get that sick you save that money in that account. You can invest that money. You can invest it in basically anything you want from stocks to bonds to other types of assets. Let that money grow and use that money to cover your Health Care Needs in retirement. So, there are many ways to do things on your own. In addition to having this money that youre going to get from the government that will allow you to save even more and thats the issue that i think Many Americans dont realize and dont really, really try to investigate and study how they can make their money work for them. Were talking with Sharon Epperson from cnbc a personal finance correspondent there, and cnbc. Com has a special report tied to the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security act into law. Shes with us for the next ten minutes or so and well get to as many calls as we can. Jim from columbus, ohio, on the line of those 50 and over. Jim, good morning. Caller good morning. My question is what about the people who cannot afford to put any money into an i. R. A. Or anything like that . I worked a job two jobs, actually, and barely making above minimum wage by the time you pay for your Health Insurance and groceries, household expenses, you have nothing left. And i have come to the conclusion, ill go probably work until i die with no end in sight as far as retirement goes. Is there any solution to this . I think a lot of folks share your frustration. And one of the things that the Obama Administration has come out with in the last few years is something called the myra account thats really designed to help people who really dont have a lot of money to put away for retirement to save something and get a matching contribution. And so i would urge you to look at myra, myra, on the government website if thats something you could contribute to that could help you with a small amount of money to start but Start Building your own Retirement Savings. Many people say i have nothing left, after paing all my bills, im barely getting by. What i say is there is often something, something, that can be cut. Many cases i should say in some cases there may not be much that can be cut and youre already working full time. You cant necessarily find another job, to be fully employed today is really an asset for so many people who are struggling and are underemployed. But if there is some place that you can cut, if there is some, you know, a cell phone bill that you can reduce or a cable bill that you can reduce or groceries that you can make sure that everything that you buy, you dont buy any groceries that are not on sale or with a coupon. Any money that youre able to save doing that, that you can put into a savings account an i. R. A. Or the myra account or a traditional or roth i. R. A. , thats a place to start. Start small, 25 will add up very quickly. Lets go to converse, texas, where laverne is waiting on that line for those between 30 and 50. Laverne, good morning. Caller good morning. I work in a very large medical office that has a Pain Management component to it as well. One of the things that we have found here is there has been exponential increase in the number of people coming in requesting paperwork to be filled out for disability. Now, a lot of these people, maybe some of them, yes, have true disabilities. But a lot of them are younger people who by virtue of exam, mri, ct scans, et cetera, have no disability whatsoever. They are complaining of low back pain. We have a psychiatrist in our office. They say that theyre depressed. Theres no after examination no diagnosis of depression, and theyre going to all of these lawyers in the state of texas who say we can get you disability. If they are not disabled, why are they still able to get disability . Which we say i think you said by 2016 is going to be depleted. How are we going to sustain this . Im working a fulltime job and a parttime job just to make sure i have money for my retirement. But i see this day in and day out. I dont know what the answer is. Maybe you have it. I dont know. But we need to do something. We need to look at kentucky where the great Mitch Mcconnell comes from he got one county that 90 of the people that live there are on some kind of disability because theyre drug addicts and alcoholics. This has to stop. Our country cannot sustain this. Sharon epperson, ill let you jump in. The comment that i would give for with your comment and your question, is that it really is something that to look at in terms of people trying to beat the system and trying to expecting that government money is there and im just going to try to get as much as i can in any way that i can from the government. I think we see that as you mentioned probably more with the disability benefits. But know that that money has to be there for everyone and for people who truly need it. And i dont think that there are some who may not really be considering that as theyre looking to see how much they can get for how long, as long as they can get it, without really thinking about the longterm consequences for the rest of the country. A tweet from mary Judith Conklin this morning who says, im almost 65 and significant other is 72. Social security is our only income. We are homeowners with no savings and a mortgage. We are not alone. No, theyre not alone. I would i wonder when they took their Social Security, at 65 and at 70, if they took it at the full retirement age. It sounds like they really needed that money so they probably took it as soon as they were able to. But one thing i would urge couples to consider is to think about whether or not the higher earning spouse can file for Social Security and then not take that money right away. If you are able to do that, your spouse may be able to get a higher benefit. Something called file and suspend and many couples have been using that strategy to get more money from the government, more Social Security benefits, and it works for many families, for many couples. You mentioned, john, cnbc. Com socialsecurity is a place to find out more information about this. Also cnbc. Com retirewell and the different strategies to try to maximize your benefits. Theres a lot of discussion why did the government do this, why is there not enough money there, those are questions to raise to legislators about what they should do to try to fix the problem but the reality is youre living in this today and you need your money today as much as you can get. So, if you are able to get Social Security and you want to figure out how to get the maximum Social Security benefit, really look at some of these, at the cnbc. Com stories for strategies. Go to the ssa. Gov website and go to financialengines. Com that has a Social Security planner where you can put in your age, your spouses age, some of the different risks and different calculations that you think that you may have in terms of figuring out how much money youre going to need for Social Security. It can give you some ideas about some of the strategies that you may want to pursue to maximize those Social Security benefits. So, the goal is really to get the money into your hands when you need it and as much as possible and you can continue to write letters or to contact, again, your legislators to figure out how they can help fix the system. But you need to fix your issues right now, and i urge you to go to these websites and try to figure out how to get the most money in your wallets today. Time for a few more phone calls with Sharon Epperson of cnbc. Jackie has been waiting in santa clara, california, on the line for those 50 and over. Hi, jackie. Caller hi, john, thank you for taking my call. Ive been waiting a long time for this topic to come back on, and i have a few comments to make. One of the them is when i started working in my 20s and i remember the amount taken out of your paycheck before, you know, you get your paycheck, i wish that they would have taken out more because i never realized how this program worked. And i think that should be for everybody to take out a little bit more to make it a more sustainable program. And this is one of my pet peeves against the republicans because they want to mess with the program and i dont understand how any republican that earns 100,000 or less wants to vote republican when they want to mess up the program so bad. And the other thing is im lucky because i had a union job which is another thing the republicans are against, so i have that retirement benefit to supplement my Social Security. And with the two of them, it ends up giving me almost what i was making when i was working full time. And there was something i heard a long time ago about people in their 20s, i believe, if they just put away 20 bucks a week, that they would have, like, a half a Million Dollars at the time of retirement and i dont have the figures correct, but they can talk to a professional that could tell them if you put this much money away, youre going to end up with amount down the road. And the age i mean, the amount the people who earn over 120,000 a year should definitely pay more into the program. It makes no sense why the millionaires dont pay more. Sharon epperson, give you a chance to respond. She brings up so many good points. I think one of the keys you said you werent too sure about the numbers when you were saying if a young person in their 20s saves 20 a peweek could have hf a Million Dollars. It could certainly happen. Thats a key point. I hope you are shouting that from the rooftops wherever you live to as many people as you can that its very important to save on your own and put more money in. You may not be putting more money in to Social Security but you can put more money in on your own to your 401 k , your i. R. A. In order to grow that money and that is a very important point to make sure the mo money is there for you. The comments you made in terms of ways to potentially fix Social Security are ones that many people have raised as well, raising the cap, making sure that people muput more money in the fund, those are definitely proposals that have been made. Well see where they go and, again, the political wranglings make it such that well probably have more debate than actual action in the coming years but this is the time that people can do what you said put the 20 in per week and see it grow and invest it wisely and youll have your own Social Security in your own hands. Lets see if we can get in cal from ogden, utah, a line for 50 and over. Hello, cal. Caller listen, thank you for taking my call. I want to say one quick thing when the law was originally written it was written in such a figures th fashion that moneys not paid out in benefits will be invested in u. S. Treasury bonds. A bond is a debt instrument. The minute you put money into a treasury bond, you give the politicians 100 access to the money. And so, therefore, the lock box created as the Social Security fund basically has trillions of dollars of ious. From the very beginning the politicians wrote the law so that any moneys that were not being paid out in benefits they would have access to the moneys. Thank you. Sharon epperson, another comment about the history here on the 80th birthday of Social Security. As we look at the history of Social Security i think there have been many comments made about how that money is being used, how the program was initially set up. I think the reality is for Many American they want to know how that system is going to work for them when they need it, how is it going to work today and 25 years from now, 35 years from now, 45 years from now when i need it and i think its very important even if you are just in your 20s just starting your career to look and see what your potential benefit would be. If you go to the ssa. Gov website it gives you a really good calculator there to try to figure out what your potential benefit would be. Great way to check in every year to fiend out where you stand an how much money you can rely from the government at least according to the calculations at that time and figure out what youre going need to do to supplement that. That is the supplement. What youre going to need to do to save on your own to build your retirement security. Its so very important and i am very concerned that many people are not really taking this into their own hands and really figuring out how they are going to be able to retire well. Thats the subject of the series that i have done and that i continue to do every week to help to educate people about the strategies they can take to make the most of their money so they can rely on themselves when it comes to their retirement security. You can check out more of Sharon Eppersons work at cnbc. Com and follow her on twitter sharonepperson an and cnbc. We appreciate your time on the 80th anniversary of Social Security. Thank you for having me. Well look at the foster care, a former foster child shares her experiences in the system. Heres a bit from that event. Spent most of my childhood in a foster care system. I was in and out of foster care experiencing 12 years of care in more than 23 different pla placements. I aged out and im still hoping to find my forever family. My most memorable care was with my great aunt. At this time i was 3 years old and my mother was pregnant with her eighth and final child. I was her fouth. My siblingses and i had been removed from my parents care after my mother went away for treatment for addiction. And my siblings and i were taken to an emergency shelter, then one of my sisters and i were soon placed with my paternal great aunt. My great aunt was a prepared woman and living with her gave me a sense of stability, love and normalcy that i unfortunately never experienced again. Eventually all of my siblings and i were reunified with my parents who relapsed shortly after. Over the next several years my siblings and i would reenter care several times after multiple failed reunifications. My siblings had Different Cases and social workers and things got really confusing. We no longer went to the same court dates and at no had point during any of my reentries was kinship care brought up as an option. I came from a great family. My father is one of nine. While living in my great aunt i saw my siblings and parents regularly. I felt close to them and desired their presence in my life. Later after we were scattered throughout foster care and group homes my close knit sibling group became strangers to each other. Before entering care we took care of each other but once the environment changed bonding became optional. By the time i was 13 i often worried that if one of my siblings were to pass i would not have anything to say at their funeral because i didnt know who they were anymore. I can view the multiple rue unifications as proof that my parents wanted to be part of my life. My reentry are also proof that they didnt know how to keep me safe and care for me and my siblings effectively. Entering foster care is traumatic for all parties involved. My father felt invaded because he was raised in a family where what happens in the home stays in the home. My mother felt revicty miletz t. Her own struggles with abandonment and abuse along with lack of addiction and Mental Health services led to my multiple reentries into care. For many years my mother struggled to get and stay clean, her ability to financially support eight kids along with her dependence onnen a abusive man made it physically impossible to take care of us. My life became a vicious cycle of neglect and instability. Were spending the last 45 minutes focusing on the foster care system in the United States to do that were joined this morning by rob dean of the annie e. Casey foundation. Rob, first give us a snapshot of foster care in the United States. How many u. S. Children are in it. And how do they enter the foster care system . Lets start with the beginning of the system. About 6. 4 million children a year are referred to protective services because theres a concern about a child being either abused or neglected. About half that number about 3. 2 million are subject to an investigation which means a Public Agency goes out to determine whether abuse and neglect has occurred. From that about 700,000 kids a year determined to be victims of abuse and neglect. Of that 1. 2 million children receive some type of followup service so some of the victims receiv receive services. One could be placement into foster care. At about 250,000 kids each year are placed into foster care. At any one time theres about 400,000 kids in foster care. On average how long do kids stay in foster care . Theres a wide range. The average is a little bit more than 12 months. You hear a lot of stories in the paper about children spending eight, nine, ten years. Thats the exception. A lot of children come into the system and the system is designed to be temporary and to return children home. But, of course, those horrific cases of kids remaining in the system is of great concern to us. For those unfamiliar with it explain what the Casey Foundation is. The foundation is dedicated to improving the lives of disadvantaged children throughout the United States. Its one of the largest private foundations in the country. Weve distributed over 2 billion of granted in the last ten years. We should say to our viewers weve got a special line for those with experience with the foster care system. That phone number 2027484000. All others if you have questions or comments, that number is 2027488001. Coming back to the foundation, what are your key proposals for reforming the foster care system in the United States . Where are the areas you think it can be improved . Sure. There are a number of areas where we seek improvement and i want to start by saying Child Welfare often gets a bad rap in the press and all the media. We think of the system as broken and were constantly criticize it, but i think we should recognize there have been lots of improvements made. The system only began in the early 1980s. Thats when the Current System was really struck lutured and i evolved in a variety of ways. And yet there are a lot of challenges for one there are areas of underinvestment. Weigh spend too much money on foster care and not enough money to prevent the need for it. Another key issue is the workforce. The average caseworker who works in Child Welfare is making a salary that none of us would consider to be very generous and yet they have the hardest job imaginable. We have caseworkers turning over and caseworkers not prepared to do their jobs and making critical decisions about children in a crisis situation so we need to do much more to improve the workforce of the system. Part of that workforce is the Foster Parents themselves. When you think about what a child is doing in foster care youre spending 24 hours a day in some type of supervision of a Foster Parent, yet we underinvest in them and we dont give the authority to act as a parent so we need to do more for Foster Parents. And lastly, we need to do better to assess the needs of kids so we know are we meeting their needs. Are we placing them in the right situation. Are they getting the right services to address the trauma theyve experienced because regardless of what their experience is if theyre in the system and been abused and neglected theyve had some type of trauma and it needs to be addressed. Can you talk about the funding stream for the foster care system in the United States, what federal dollars go into it. Sure. Lets start from the broadest sense. We spend about 30 billion a year on Child Welfare. Thats both Child Protective Services, prevention, foster care. A little less than half of that money comes from the federal government. There are a number of different funding streams that states have to patch together to create that system. Unfortunately, more of the money is dedicated to foster care than to prevention and the other services that we would like to see. While the number of the improvements i talked about, talked about maybe spending more money and the system is underfunded, one of the things that we want to stress is that we need to align the funding better with what we know works. So, for example, foster care is expensive. We could save money by actually preventing foster care by supporting birth parents better so theres not a need for foster care. Once in the foster care system, we place way too many children in institutional care. Its the most expensive type of care and also may not have the best results for kids. Thats the group system. The group system, correct. And so theres some kids who need a shortterm residential stay to meet their needs and that is an essential part of the system. But that should be, like, an emergency room. We should get a shortterm, immediate therapeutic intervention, but then return them to a family setting where we know they will do best. That residential setting is far, far more expensive. So if we can make sure that children are with families well save money and get better outcomes. Who makes that determination whether a child goes to a foster pas parent or a group home . Is it a judge, a psychologist, a doctor . Its a good question. The caseworker is making a recommendation based on people from psychologists and presenting it to a judge and a judge authorizes it. But primarily the decision is being made by a caseworker. As we said in this segment of the washington journal were focusing on the foster care system in the United States and have the last half hour of the show to do it and we have a special line if you have questions or comments of rob gene. Lets start with debra calling in from new haven, connecticut. Good morning, debra. Caller good morning. This is such a great subject. I was in foster care with the Lincoln Watts childr taqq systen yonkers, new york, i was there from birth. I was a product of a rape. Can you hear me . Yes, go ahead, debra. Caller i stayed in the hospital for 30 days until a foster family was found for me. The foster family was very middle class. They did well. She stayed home. Visits a year to Lincoln Watts which they had to do. They did a psychological asse assessment twice a year without fail i went. The problem i had with that later on is that at a certain age, i think it was around 12, they left it up to me whether or not i wanted to go stay with my birth mother. My birth mother just happened to be developmentally disabled. She had just come out of a mental institution. And it wasnt a really good it really wasnt a good decision. So i only stayed consequently with her maybe about a year. And then i had to then i had to go again, in which case they kind of lost me in the system. I went from being homeless at, like, 13, living on the street, to another group home to another foster home back to a foster home to another foster home. It was really and i got to tell you from that day to this i have not seen another worker. Aging out, thats a whole nother experience because theyre supposed to give you some time of support when you age out. I didnt receive any. So i kind of melded into society after age of 18 without any type of what do i do really, you know . As an adult now, how do i pay rent, get a job, how do i do this, how do i do that. There were systems. The states have systems set up but they dont tell you that, oh, we do give you assistance. We help you. Im in connecticut now and they i know foster children who get help. They pay bills they pay a little portion of the rent, give you a little stipend so that they can work on so that they can live on their own, but that is not thats not advertised. Its not pushed. You really dont even know what youre entitled to as a foster child. And i just want to say this. I dont want to talk too long. Just one of the things that why not give more support to the parents before theyre yanked out of the home if its not a matter of life and death, if its not a matter of life and death, how about giving some support if you find the parents really do have no parental skills whatsoever, how about making that mandatory . You have to go to Parenting Classes. You must pass these Parenting Classes before you yank the children out. I think thats a whole lot cheaper than yanking them out and putting them into a system where its just going to wreak havoc on our society as a whole because as you know 70 of all foster care children end up in prison. Debra, i appreciate you sharing your story. I want to let you address some of the many concerns that debra brings up. Youve raised a number of important points but before i join them i should say how thrill eed i am that you calledn and other people that have called in. We rely on the young people to help guide our policy development. We know the people affected by the system are much more knowledgeable than any policy wonk oftentimes about how to fix the system. Youve raised a number of issues. Lets start with the agingout question because its a critical one. There was a period in our history where we let kids age out with almost nothing and we gave them a trash bag, told them to gather their goods and sent them on their way with maybe a 50 check and then they wind up at a homeless shelter. Weve done a lot recently to try to improve the way that we support young people who are aging out. Weve even extended the time that kids can stay in foster care from 18 to 21. And some states have even gone beyond that because, you know, i have two teenagers. I dont think theyre ready to leave home by age of 18 and we recognize that foster kids arent either. 21 is the National Minimum . 21 is what the federal government will pay for. Not every state has extended care to 21. Thats one of the efforts wed like to see every state do. Its optional. A child doesnt have to stay in care but making it an offer and recognizing that were not necessarily independent adults at 18, weve seen very much of a success in the states that have extended it. Theres that end of it and theres lots more we can do to support young people as they age out. But frankly the child ages out, we failed. We failed as a parent. We are the parent once a child comes into foster care and every child who ages out is something we didnt do because they should have permanency. They should have a permanent family to call home whether its their birth family, whether its a relative or whether its an adopted family so we need to do a lot more to prevent kids from aging out in the first place. Your point about trying to support birth parents so that children dont need foster care is exactly the point i was trying to make initially. We can do more of that. We have done more of that. Parenting classes unfortunately a lot of them dont work very well, but there is evidencebased programs that we can invest in. This is the realigning resources. Lets stop spending money on things we know dont work and channel that money into programs we do know works. Lets go back to the line for those who have had experience with the foster care system in this country. Elaine is in jacksonville, florida, good morning, elaine. Caller good morning. Yes, i was a foster mom. And i would like to say the system here worked very well for me at that time. I had taken a teenager and her baby. And she was 16 then. Shes 32 now. But we are still in contact. But i would like to say that i had a lot of support with her in the foster care system. Worked very well with the caseworkers. But one of the things i did realize this from my foster daughter is that some homes have too many children in them. And i guess maybe that becomes from a shortage of people that want to be Foster Parents. And i think these children that are multiple children in one home is not a good idea because, you know, as a parent you can only parent a child very well, you know, if you have a few children. So i was able to do that with my teenager and her baby, well shes not a teenager now. And then when she did age out, she got a lot of support. She got was able to get her own apartment and she was could go to school and she is a cna today. And shes doing very well. So, i think that it depends on the kind of homes you put the children in, and, you know, how they work with the system also. So, elaine, let me start by thanking you for your service and been a foster care and its important that we have people willing and capable of doing that. There are far more people who want to be Foster Parents than we tap into. And part of it is how we treat the Foster Parents. Im glad that you had a positive experience in florida. And florida actually was a model for legislation that was passed last year with an incentive to the states to make sure that Foster Parents are given the opportunity to make decisions for their kids. Its what we refer to as a prudent parenting standard, that a Foster Parent should be able to make decisions as a prudent parent rather than constantly asking the agency for permission for what to do. So, when a child goes into care, the first option before we start looking at stranger foster care should be a relative. God forbid if my wife and i couldnt care for my teenagers the first place we would look is someone related to us, someone who knows them and they trust. Because its going to be traumatic if they have to leave our house, anyway, the trauma will be minimized to some extent if they know someone. We can do a lot more with recruiting and working with relatives, but if thats not possible and not every family has a relative available, then we do have to tap into the generosity of those willing to be Foster Parents. If we treat them well, if we change the relationship that we have with Foster Parents and not just say youre here on a contract basis, to provide three lots and a cot, but youre actually a partner with us in raising these children, well have a lot more people willing to do that work. Unfortunately, i dont think were doing that throughout the United States. I should note if you want to see more of rob geens work you can go to the website aecf. Org. Were taking your calls on the last 20 minutes of todays show. Shirley is on the line. Helps counseling kids in texas. Shirley, youre on with rob geen. Caller yes, good morning. My observation has been throughout the years because i was a casa which is a guardian ad litem for nine or ten years. And then i have been on the Child Protective Services board here in texas for the last couple of years. And what i have seen here in the through the years is judges sometimes, and i found this to be true in missouri and texas as well, some i had i had one case where the young man aged out of out of the system. He was a he was a quadriplegic. He was blind, and the judge sentenced him to a home that was in the next town away from where his mother and sisters lived, against the recommendation of his doctor and myself as his as his guardian ad litem. Here in the state of texas we have a judge that would not place the children in the grandfather and grandmothers custody because of a comment that the grandmother made that was not in liking with what the judge said. So, sometimes we just have situations i have seen where they have come in and accused parents of doing things when the child is sitting there saying no, no, no, that is not what happened. And start a fullscale investigation on the individual. And finding that he was that the child was absolutely right, but its traumatic for a family to have Child Protective Services come into their home and start accusing them of things when that was not the case at all. Shirley, i appreciate you sharing your experience in texas and missouri. Want to ask you, the judge is in charge of making some of these final decisions. How much training do judges get in sort of the background of what is best for children, what the studies have shown . Im glad shirley raises this issue because we think about Child Welfare as primarily Foster Parents and social Services Agencies and the judiciaries and the casas and the guardian ad litems play a Critical Role in oversight. Frankly there are not many judges that see the family bench as their career. They cycle through different circuits and they dont necessarily spend a lot of time as Family Court Judges so we have a large number of judges that dont have a lot of detailed experience. They err on one side or the other, they either rubber stamp things or shirleys experiences they take their own personal biases and make decisions about it. I think theres been a movement afoot over the last several years to invest more in the judicial shear both the attorneys and the judges to educate them on Child Development. Its easy for a judge, for example, to get back to the group care issue. They see a large facility with lots of money, green grass, Rolling Hills and they say, oh, this is a great place to place a child not knowing what we know from Child Development research, that institutions are bad for their development, the love of a family is so much more important than the Rolling Hills and the sunshiny floors in an institution. But they dont fully appreciate that because they havent had the education. So there are a number of organizations that are working to improve that. Lets go to lisa in howell, michigan, with experience in the foster care system. Good morning, lisa. Caller hi, ive been trying to get an adopted children and they are making me in my county take foster caring classes and go through foster caring licenses in order to adopt. So, i dont like the whole thing about making you to be the Foster Parent to where they can try to dish new care upon you that theyre taking away from the parents. I cant even go into the foster care system and get some teenagers that have been there for years. Into my home. Sure. So, many states have moved into this fostapt dual training and part of the reasoning behind that is the majority of kids that are adopted from foster care are adopted by their Foster Parents so they want to make sure that that is a seamless process. There are those like lisa that dont want to be Foster Parents, they only want to adopt. Its not like parenting your own child. The children have had traumatic experiences and you need to understand how best to meet their needs. Now, i would be shocked if lisa was forced to take a foster child. It is always the option of the parent whether to take a child into their home or not, so even though it is a dual process and she could be licensed as a Foster Parent she would likely only receive kids that she wanted and that were available for adoption. Lets go to joan in rochester, minnesota, who has had experience in foster care. Joan, good morning. Caller good morning to you. I met a young man and his mom when he was 2 and i was involved through his lifetime which i still am involved in it now. My contention my idea is, and ill go on with my story later, is that the foster care system should try not to educate as much the Foster Parents but take the real parents who are feeling lower than low and educate them so that you can reunite that child with his own family. Now, if that doesnt work, then i could see passing them on to somebody else. But the young man i knew went into a foster home with someone that worked for the foster care system, and it was not to me a very good experience for him. She worked all day. She was a single foster mother. She had a young man and a young girl in the same home that were not related. She ran their lives like a drill sergeant. And he had he left that home from the time he was born until she left that home without knowing anything about how a loving family could be. Now, he did have some other Foster Parents, but he didnt stay he wasnt allowed to stay with them. And then when he left the foster care home he was in, which there was some really unpleasant things, and he got off his medication, they no longer have anything to do with him. So, i helped him as much as i could with caring and making sure he made right decisions for himself. Right now hes married. He has a little girl and he has a wife. But as far as being knowledgeable about anything that he should have learned through those years, he doesnt have it. And i think they should start instead of the tail wagging the dog they should take the dog who wags the tail and educate that parent and try to reunite them rather than having these kids jump from one house to another house to another house without that loving care and put out to fend for themselves without having anybody to go back to. Joan, appreciate the call. Rob geen . I think you are absolutely right, theres no institute for a loving family. Thats what we want for our own kids and for all of the children that unfortunately have to be removed from their homes. Let me clarify one thing about the Child Welfare system. The Child Welfare system is designed to be a temporary respite so that parents can get their kids back and, in fact, most do so about twothirds of the children who exit foster care each year are either reunited with their birth families or given to a relative and so we focus a lot on children who age out. Its a little less than 10 of the kids and we focus a lot on adoption but, again, thats a small portion. The system is designed exactly the way you suggested. We dont always do a great job of it. I think we can improve on our rates of reunifications making sure children do reunite with birth families and making sure that when children are in the system they stay connected to the families whether one week, one month in care they should have regular contact with their families so they can feel the love. A question from twitter how do you determine if a family is eligible to be foster care parents . How extensive and effective is the background check . There is very little federal policy in this area. This is a state by state licensing process. Its a combination of who you are as a person and also your home. Is it safe. Do you have enough space. All of that. There is a fairly extensive background check. I would suggest that the current licensing system is actually overly burdensome. My wife and i have laughed at times when, you know, were raising two teenagers in the direct of columbia and our house may not be eligible to be a foster home because in the District Of Columbia theres a requirement that every second story bedroom have a a ladder g outside in case of a fire. With teenage that ladder may be more of a safety risk than a precaution. Thats a funny anecdote. But there are lots of things we put into the licensing that have little to do with your ability to raise a child and more with middle class values of what a home should be and it prevents a number of relatives from acting as a foster home. Theres a fingerprinting process, a background check. But heres the question, you come up with a criminal background, a grandmother who had a shoplifting charge when hes 18. Shes now 63 and wants to take care of her granddaughter . Should she be denied the opportunity to be a Foster Parent if we deem thats the best place for that child because of a shoplifting charge at 18 . She would under the current state . It depends on the state, how far back they go and what levels of crime. Theres a lot more concern around drug and alcohol because very, very small amounts of marijuana may actually raise to a level of a felony. That would prevent someone from doing it. And yet its so long ago, and weve changed a little bit in our perspective maybe. This is a different person than that person was when she was 17 or 18. Shreveport, louisiana, is next. Daschle has also had experience with the foster system in this country. Good morning. Caller good morning. How yall doing, gentlemen . Good. Go ahead. Caller yes, sir. My children were removed from my home. I was pregnant at the time. And the social worker came to my house to get my children. I had another child in the hospital. She said, do you have any other family members . Their fathers mother was there. She said, yeah i could take the kids with me. She wrote in the report that no one was available to take the kids and she took my kids to a group home. It took me two years to get my children back. They are back home. And i went through a lot. And my children went through a lot as well. I had one of my two of my children, their grandmother was with social services at the time. She had been there 20 years. She was telling the social worker im on drugs, im prostituting, when i work for the department of education in the state of louisiana. Ive never been on drugs. Ive never prosecuted. They would drug test me random, passed my drug testing, went through Parenting Classes, got done with everything in four to six months. But when you have somebody working for the system, whos an employee, where your son has two kids with this woman, quite naturally theyre going to believe him over me. Im sorry for your experience. Unfortunately, there are relatives available in most cases and theyre not always given consideration. It gets back to the question of judges. First off, we want caseworkers to understand the value of a relative and to think about it from their own perspective. What would they do if it was one of their children . They should be the state law and federal requires that the agency first notify relatives a child is coming into care and give them every opportunity to care for them. In this instance, the law wasnt followed. There should be a number of back drops. The caseworker should be first. There should be a supervisor asking, why are we placing this child somewhere other than a relative . If the judges were well trained, i would want them to ask from the bench. Where are the relatives . They arent appropriate. Why arent they appropriate . They dont have an extra bed. Give them an extra bed so the child can stay with the family. A comment from nick on twitter. A friend and his wife got into financial trouble. To apply for income they applied for foster kid and got approved. They didnt care about the kid. How do you guard against that . You hear a lot in the media people becoming Foster Parents for the money. Most Foster Parents will tell you that thats president crazy because the amount of money it costs to raise a child is much, much higher than the cost any type of reimbursement they get from the state for doing their job. In fact, we know that most forst parents give a considerable amount of their own income to support the children. There will be rare exceptions where a person is malintended. They dont really want to do it. They want the money. Theyre going to get more than one child, then try to get kids with special needs, which are often providing additional resources. But thats the rare exception. And you guard against that by really getting to know the Foster Parents. Not just a checklist of, yes, they have two beds. Yes, theyve got this, a tv, all this. Understanding their motivation for doing it. Interviewing them and getting to know them. St. Francis, minnesota, is up next. Timothys experience with foster system in this country. Good morning. Caller good morning, sir. How you doing . Good. Good. Caller the reason im calling, as a child growing up, i was in the foster care system a little bit. My mom was sick a lot, so i didnt was taken out of the house. Not because she was bad or good or anything like that. The reason i called basically called is i got a complaint against the foster care and our legal system. Have i a granddaughter whos in in north dakota. And the court give her and her big sister to their nonbiological grandmother. The grandmother taught them two little girls to live off the system, take advantage of the system. Their education was minimal. They didnt attend school. The grades were bad because the grandmother was not involved in that system. Now, one of them is in supposed to be going into foster care. As a biological grandfather, i would like to be involved in this little girls life but i cant because legal not legal problems but just family problems with my son. I just dont think the legal the gives the of these children the ability to be involved with them as they are growing up. Just my complaint against the system. I appreciate the call. Thank you very much, sir. So, families are complex. And when youve got multiple family members, trying to figure out what is best is a challenge for the caseworker. One of the best practices were trying to implement throughout the country and to get states to really Pay Attention to is familien gaugement. The practice im referring to is team decisionmaking. That means bring the family together to help make decisions about what should happen to the child. The caseworker shouldnt be making a decision or the judge shouldnt be making a decision in isolation or with one family member. Lets bring everyone who knows the child together around a table and discuss, all right, whats best . Whos willing to take the child . Whos willing to drive them to football practice . Whos willing to tutor them in their subjects . Wrap the family around the child, make sure that we understand the Family Dynamics and get everyone involved. What if theres competing interests there . Is that a democratic process where everybody gets a vote on what they thunk should be best for the child . The agency is acting as parent have to make the decisions, but if they get input from everyone, they can see the Family Dynamics and help manage them. They can prevent a child from not being afforded the opportunity to still have contact with a grandfather if another relative who says, this isnt in the best interest. Well, why . Understanding what beyond that . Again, the families are complex, but having that as a mediator and understanding all sides of the story. A few minutes left. Well try to get to as many calls as we can, including eric from here in washington, d. C. , also had experience in the foster care system. Hello. Caller im 46 years old. And i was in foster care. I should say, when i was 8 months old, my mother fractured my skull and then i got taken from the family. That was in new jersey. Im actually from new jersey. I got put in foster care for almost five years. And i had to be rushed into adoption because my foster mother was elderly. She actually died in 78, four years after i got taken into an adoptive family. I was adopted by rudy and joanne, shes deceased. Hell be 78 this month. They had seven natural kids and adopted 30. I heard as i turned on the show that 70 of foster kids end up in prison. I should say in my family, of the 30 that were adopted, maybe well, two of them ended up in prison long term. One is back and forth between jail and the Mental Hospital and the vast majority of everyone else is okay. But i guess the Lesson Learned here is that my parents had a rule you had to gebt adopted. You couldnt just be a foster child until you were 18. You had to get adopted. Had you to take on the last name. Thats why im a black man with a polish last name. So they really emphasized a sense of family. I think thats whats missing a lot of times in foster care. When they turn 18, theyre on their own because the Foster Parents say, well sh, my job is done. For me, im going to see my italian mother later this month on her birthday a few days after, actually. But that said, i think that we should emphasize a real sense of family and belonging. It isnt just about the money. It is about family, taking on that last name, becoming part of that family. I have two white parents. Im a black man, as i said. I really commend my parents for having that sense of family that they have. Thanks for the call from here in washington, d. C. He had a few stats in that comment. Can you go over those, of prison rates for those who have been in foster care . Sure. Im glad you raised that because i think thats misleading. A prior caller made that claim, 70 . I think they were referring to kids who aged out of foster care. The vast majority of kids who are served are reunified, returned to a relative. The next segment of kids are adopted. Its a small pen