Common Sense on Medicare

The question of class warfare has come up on this blog now and then over the years, but some of us have also been writing and thinking about "age-warfare".  That is, with the "pig" of the Baby-Boomers moving through the "python" of retirement and old age, a gigantic transfer of wealth will occur from the young and productive to the old and sick.  This editorial lays out the numbers in a fairly straightforward and unemotional way.  Americans have come to believe that they have "paid for" their Medicare benefits and by God, they're going to get them.  The truth is however, something else.  The difference between what the average worker pays into the system and what they derive from it is immense, and it is ultimately paid for by the income taxes of those still working.  We MUST begin to think rationally about how the medical care of seniors--a group whose aggregate net worth has increased at a rate faster than any other age cohort--is financed.  Because a person has avoided the grave does not ipso facto mean that the rest of us should pay for their medical insurance.  Medicare MUST be means tested--aggressively--so that young, productive workers are not taxed in order to fund "the good life" for those with sufficient resources.