Social Security and Medicare

I Don’t Want Them. 

I want my contributions back, plus 12.34% interest from 1958 until 2008.

I am a recipient of both; Social Security for 3 years and Medicare for about 3 months.

I've never liked either of them. I started working at 12 years old and I was required to get a Social Security Card. I didn't understand what it was about, but I wanted to work to save up money for a car, when I turned 16. I definitely understood it when I got my first check and the government had taken my money that I had planned to put in permanent savings.

I didn't like it then, and I never liked it. I don’t like it now, I've been cheated and robbed, and apparently I have no recourse since I missed the wavier period by 30 years. Three Texas gulf coast counties of Brazoria, Galveston, and Matagorda chose to opt out of Social Security to design their own pension plans in 1981, when Congress still allowed government units to make that choice. They  selected a private investment firm to manage their employees’ retirement plans.  County workers there now get about three times the average SSA check at retirement.

I paid into Social Security for 50 years before I retired. For 13 years I was self-employed and had to pay my employee share and the employers share. The amount of money I contributed in 5 decades could have been invested conservatively on my own and would have been worth roughly $1.3 million USD by the time I reached 62 years old. Inflation has devalued our money 12 times since 1958. That means a hundred dollars ($100) then is worth $8.43 today

And at minimal interest earnings of 4% compounded annually on permanent savings of $1,340 dollars per year for 50 years would be roughly $223,500, and plus the rate of inflation equaling interest of 12.34% (8.34 plus 4), could have been $5,448.704 in my personal account.

In 1965 and 1966 I protested loudly against passage of Medicare. No one listened and July 1966 it was signed by President Lyndon Johnson, one of my candidates for 10 worst US Presidents ever. I thought then and I still do that it would steal the freedom and self-esteem of hard working, taxpaying, good citizens who had cared for themselves for fifty years or more. And rob them of the responsibility to provide for their own elder care. And cheat all of those who didn't live to 65, and rob their families who have no inheritance rights to the contributions made by their ancestor. So, you could pay in for 50 years and drop dead before drawing any benefit, your heirs get nothing. The government confiscates your paid up right on behalf of others, who may have never contributed anything but have lived past 65 years old.

Retired people are a huge group and banded together could qualify for very reasonably priced health insurance.

If the government had not made it illegal, most retires could continue there employee insurance coverage a reasonable rates. Medicare recipients must make premium payments from their income, Social Security, or employee pensions. Mine is about $130 monthly for much less coverage than I had before retirement.

It’s getting more and more difficult to find competent Doctors willing to accept Medicare patients. Also, Part A is already bankrupt since 2008. The rest will cost more than incoming revenue in about 10 years. To postpone the inevitable, rationing is being considered, along with reducing the benefits and increasing the revenue.

As the bubble of War Babies retire and become eligible for Medicare, the problem will quickly worsen. I believe there is less than one person paying in for each person drawing benefits now, and some of them never paid anything in, and many paid very little.

I don’t like social programs. We were better people when we didn't have them. We helped each other through families, neighbors, friends, churches, and non-profit organizations. Bribing people with promised benefits for their vote is ugly and sordid. Not allowing them the freedom of choice to take care of themselves, mandating they become a dependent of a government sanctioned Ponzi scheme (http://www.sec.gov/answers/ponzi.htm) is an abomination.

What needs to be done now to eliminate these fowl and heinous, not very "sociable” Social Security and Medicare programs?

1. Cut Benefits

2. Drop those who did not contribute as ineligible.

3. No “means” test; if you paid up, you get an equal share, just like everyone else who paid up, regardless of your savings or income.

4. Allow those less than 30 years old, to waive their rights to either or both; or pay higher contributions rates.

5. Allow those under 40 years old, to waive 50% of their benefits and pay higher contributions.

6. Allow those under 55 years old, to waive 25% of benefits and pay higher contributions.

7. Require 80 quarters (20 years) of contributions, for those less than 30 years old, to be eligible for SS benefit, and remove disability insurance from this program leaving just a low retirement supplement and low survivors benefits.

Wake up, start immediately eliminating forced dependency and esteem robbing socialist programs. In another fifty years maybe people will again be able to care for themselves without being robbed, demonized, mentally crippled, and impoverished by their own government.

Or do nothing, just let them fail.