«Social Security is paid for by the people who use it. It is an INSUANCE PROGRAM paid BEFORE they use it. An Insurance program is NOT socialism. MEDICAID is Socialism. Not Medicare.»
Well, MEDICAID is also insurance: it effectively insures *everybody* against the risk of becoming too poor to pay healthcare premiums. Same as MEDICARE reall…
«Social Security is paid for by the people who use it. It is an INSUANCE PROGRAM paid BEFORE they use it. An Insurance program is NOT socialism. MEDICAID is Socialism. Not Medicare.»
Well, MEDICAID is also insurance: it effectively insures *everybody* against the risk of becoming too poor to pay healthcare premiums. Same as MEDICARE really.
Also Social Security (OASDI) does the same: it gives rather smaller pensions than those earned by contributions to high earners and rather larger pensions than those earned by contributions to low earners.
Therefore it effectively insures *everybody* against the risk of being too poor to get a decent pension.
So if you look at the disproportion between contributions and "returns" all three programs are "socialist", but if you consider that disproportion as insurance against poverty, all three are contributory insurance programs.
They key is that *everybody* gets insured: someone earning $1m/year with children who loses everything gets MEDICAID, when he retires she gets MEDICARE, and she gets OASDI when she retires or becomes disabled. The higher-than-proportional taxes and contributions she made when earning $1m/year insure her against the risk of not being able to contribute later when becomes too poor to do so.
«Social Security is paid for by the people who use it. It is an INSUANCE PROGRAM paid BEFORE they use it. An Insurance program is NOT socialism. MEDICAID is Socialism. Not Medicare.»
Well, MEDICAID is also insurance: it effectively insures *everybody* against the risk of becoming too poor to pay healthcare premiums. Same as MEDICARE really.
Also Social Security (OASDI) does the same: it gives rather smaller pensions than those earned by contributions to high earners and rather larger pensions than those earned by contributions to low earners.
Therefore it effectively insures *everybody* against the risk of being too poor to get a decent pension.
So if you look at the disproportion between contributions and "returns" all three programs are "socialist", but if you consider that disproportion as insurance against poverty, all three are contributory insurance programs.
They key is that *everybody* gets insured: someone earning $1m/year with children who loses everything gets MEDICAID, when he retires she gets MEDICARE, and she gets OASDI when she retires or becomes disabled. The higher-than-proportional taxes and contributions she made when earning $1m/year insure her against the risk of not being able to contribute later when becomes too poor to do so.