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How can Americans justify lining up for Medicare while being against ObamaCare?
The most common response to this question? "I paid for it. I deserve it."
The problem with that response? It is wrong. Charles Hugh Smith summarized the numbers as follows:
"Medicare tax is 2.9% of wages, 1.45% each for employer and employee. If the typical worker makes $30,000 a year for 35 years, then lifetime earnings are about $1 million. If we take the $40,000/year average, then that rises to around $1.4 million in lifetime earnings. The 2.9% Medicare tax thus totals about $30,000 to $40,000 in lifetime contributions for the average worker. The average benefits extracted from the system run from $393,000 to $525,000 (due to the benefits extended to non-working spouses, benefits for never-married people may be somewhat lower). Average annual costs per beneficiary run as high as $18,000, though expenses typically rise significantly in the last year of life."
Medicare isn't insurance. It is not something you fund with a willing counterpart taking the risk for a negotiated premium based on individual underwriting. Medicare is welfare, plain and simple. It is a government transfer program. Few receiving Medicare today paid enough to justify the government largess they are now receiving (or are hoping to receive).
Medicare is nothing more or less than a contemporary bread line for the sick and is destined to hasten the bankruptcy, and ultimate default by the United States.
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