Comments on economics, mystery fiction, drama, and art.

Wednesday, February 01, 2017

Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Intergenerational Compact

Just posted this (with minor modifications here) as a comment on Claire McCaskill's FB page:

Here's the thing. The Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, intend to make massive cuts to Social Security, to Medicare, and to Medicaid. The threat is much less to those of us who have retired and are signed up with Medicare and are receiving our SS payments (although the threat to Medicaid is real--so many seniors depend on it to pay for nursing home care--that I'd almost place protecting Medicaid above protecting SS and Medicare, for those of us over 65).

The REAL threat is to those younger, especially those 40 & older. They have (largely) built savings portfolios on the assumption that SS and Medicare (and, again, Medicaid) would continue to provide their current levels of standard of living for (future) retirees. THOSE are the people who are going to be really screwed--their benefits stolen, but without time to change the course of how they prepare for retirement.

Ryan and his acolytes are aiming to break the generations-long inter-generational compact that SS is, and they are hoping that those of us who will not be harmed don't care enough about the trailing generations to ACT. We need to prove them wrong.

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