Optionally disastrous

I mentioned the proposed changes to Social Security and Medicare, and you might be thinking that these changes won’t hurt them because it’s just a way to offer people options of how to save for retirement.

First of all, even if the proposed changes worked, my wife and I are both under 55 and can’t work.  There’s no way we can save enough for retirement.  If you’re 54 years old could you save enough for retirement in 10, or even 15 or 20 years?  If you can, good for you, but most people in the country can’t.

Social Security and Medicare weren’t created because everything was working great for seniors.  Seniors were sick and living in poverty, that’s why those social service programs were created.

But the changes would destroy these programs.  They work as they were designed, with some minor adjustments, but these changes will push millions of people out of them.  Reducing the base of people paying into them will run Social Security and Medicare into the ground very quickly.

Social services aren’t there just for the fun of it, they exist because it’s simple human decency to make sure that people don’t die sick, in pain, and starving.

Any talk of a grand bargain is talk of abandoning seniors because they just aren’t worth it to the people who run the country.  It’s just profit over compassion.