Social Insecurity – Are Medicare & Social Security on the Chopping Block?

Millennials and younger seem to share serious doubts about whether Social Security will still be around when they are ready to retire. If it were up to a majority of elected Republicans, that negative expectation just might begin to become reality very, very soon. Republican doctrine uses the term “entitlements” with the same pejorative intention of their misuse of the words “socialism” or “woke.” The GOP’s constant belief that “private is always better,” as they tout 401(k) private plans mostly build on the stock market in lieu of government retirement benefits, seem to overlook the recent fall in the US stock markets of almost 25%. They pretend to “shore up” the entire Social Security system… by eliminating people and cutting benefits. And if the GOP takes the House, you can expect some tangible steps to erode both Medicare and Social Security.

Supply-side economics – incent the job creators with lower taxes and watch the rising tide float all boats – is a philosophy the sank Liz Truss as the shortest tenured UK prime minister, but it is still the gospel economic GOP platform. Even though it has never worked anywhere it has been applied. The justification is often to remove those “entitlements” (huh? You mean those benefits I have been paying for decades?) from essentially freeloaders who are putting a drag on our economy. Like elderly folks? But since they comprise a significant portion of GOP voters, you have to pretend that you are improving the financial viability of Medicare and Social Security. Financial stability could more directly be solved by stopping the government giveaway to rich people instead. The reality is that we have a system with an aging population that our leaders simply have ignored.

Republicans want to force the issue and hide behind issues like insisting on a debt ceiling to leverage those unpopular benefit reductions. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has rather openly campaigned to reverse those recent Biden Inflation Reduction Act Medicare caps on insulin and annual prescription drug costs, eliminate the new benefits for hearing aids and glasses and find ways to reduce the hard dollar benefits paid to the elderly. That we are the only developed nation on earth without universal health is countered with avoiding “creeping socialism,” conflating programs developed to benefit citizens with government takeover of private property (the real meaning of “socialism”). The GOP is very good at misusing labels to defeat benefits for most of us.

So, let’s visit the debt ceiling extortion attempt. The United States has never defaulted on its national debt, and to so would plunge us into a world where such unreliability will be factored into the interest we would have to pay for our national borrowings. Are Republicans willing to do that to all of us? Increase our budget by these higher interest payments with no benefit at all? But they love to threaten, and one day they just might self-inflict that damage. But they are laser focused on cutting Social Security and Medicare.

Writing for the October 21st Los Angeles Times, OpEd writer Michael Hiltzik explains: “In its latest manifestation, four Republicans angling to become chair of the House Budget Committee in a Republican House talked openly about holding the federal debt ceiling hostage to an agreement on ‘entitlements’ — that is, Social Security and Medicare — plainly aimed at cutting benefits… In fact, the Republicans are proposing to deny benefits to millions of Americans, all in the name of ‘strengthening and shoring up” those programs, as House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) described the proposals for Fox News on Oct. 16… In interviews with Bloomberg, the four laid out their vision. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said the GOP’s focus in budget cutting has ‘got to be on entitlements.’

“Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), told Bloomberg that the party caucus would oppose options for shoring up Social Security’s fiscal condition that included tax increases but would look kindly on raising the eligibility age for that program and Medicare… ‘Republicans have a list of eligibility reforms, and we don’t like the tax increases,’ Arrington said… “Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) — who’s hoping to become speaker if the GOP wins control of the House — added his voice to the GOP chorus calling for using the debt ceiling as ‘leverage’ to achieve their budget goals…

“Now let’s examine the GOP proposals for Social Security and Medicare. According to the party’s model federal budget , they include raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare to as high as 70… This idea is both ignorant and insane. The current full retirement age for Social Security is 67, for those born in 1960 or later, but workers can start collecting as early as age 62. (They get reduced monthly benefits for life if they do so, but higher benefits for life if they wait as long as age 70.)

“Most workers don’t wait until their full retirement age to start collecting benefits, almost always because they can’t — they need the money and can’t continue working. According to program statistics, about 37% start taking benefits at 62, and more than half do so before their full retirement age. Only about 6.7% can afford to wait until age 70. In other words, force people to wait, and more than 98% of future beneficiaries would be left behind.

“The GOP defends this proposal by pointing to the increase in life expectancy for those reaching 65 — ‘the average life expectancy for men reaching 65 increased from 77.7 to over age 82.9,’ they write in their budget — implying that the average American spends a longer period collecting retirement than in the past. The average, however, masks a lot of diversity.

“The life expectancy tables issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the figures cited by the GOP apply chiefly to white males. For Black males, the average life expectancy is only 81 — two years short of the white male cohort. Would the Republicans adjust for this discrepancy? They don’t say, so the answer is probably no.

“The Republican plan would also allow workers to divert some of their Social Security contributions into private retirement plans. The drawbacks to this idea are no secret — they helped torpedo a similar proposal by George W. Bush in 2005 , thank goodness… The GOP says its goal is to ‘provide workers the freedom to choose how to save their own money for retirement.’ Here’s a translation of this coded phrase: It’s a way to place your retirement resources into the hands of Wall Street. The GOP asserts that ‘requiring all young workers to participate in a one-size-fits-all government-run retirement program does not make economic sense.’”

But given the reality of how most are unable to save for their retirement, the GOP plan seems to portend a significant increase in the number elderly homeless. And if you think all this leads to getting prices and inflation under control, there’s bridge in Brooklyn you should consider buying!

I’m Peter Dekom, and the GOP has managed to build its constituency with powerful support from the mega-rich, conspiracy theorists and religious extremists.