We start with this reality: Social Security and Medicare are practically sacrosanct. Nearly nine-in-ten Americans say they’re good for the country. That’s an amazing number. But the popularity of these programs really isn’t all that surprising. People love them because they do what they were created to do. They ease many of the frets and dreads of old age ”“ a blessing not just for seniors but for everyone who loves, supports and depends on seniors. Which is to say, everyone.
But the status quo is unsustainable. Some 10,000 Baby Boomers will be going on Social Security and Medicare every single day between now and 2030. By the time everyone in this big pig-in-the-python generation is drawing benefits, we’ll have just two workers per beneficiary ”“ down from three-to-one now, five-to-one in 1960 and more than forty-to-one in 1945, shortly after Social Security first started supporting beneficiaries.
The math of the 20th century simply won’t work in the 21st. Today’s young are paying taxes to support a level of benefits for today’s old that they have no realistic chance of receiving when they become old. And they know it ”“ just 6% of Millennials say they expect to receive full benefits from Social Security when they retire. Fully half believe they’ll get nothing.
Why people think SSN and Medicare are such wonderful programs is mind boggling.
1. To get out of SSN what I have been FORCED to pay into it, I will have to live to or beyond my statistical life expectancy. So what benefit am I getting? Also, all that money I paid in….it is not mine. If I die earlier, my heirs have no call on that money. So where is the “benefit”?
2. Medicare is a benefit? By the time you pay for medicare and the typical supplemental policy, you are putting out a healthy chunck of change per month. In a free market with true price competition, who says we “mature” folks could not do much better?
Yes, people will always advocate for “those who never saved, etc, etc”. But that is not who these programs have morphed into helping. They have just become big, ever-expanding government programs. See the future of Obamacare [if it lasts].