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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (252678)	12/30/2007 7:11:00 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Simple means testing would solve the problem. I don't think so. It would kill the general public support for Social Security by changing it from an insurance program to a welfare program. The well-to-do could very justly point out that they had spent their whole working careers being forced to pay ever heftier chunks of their wages to a program that was promised to them as insurance, and now when it comes time to pay out, suddenly they are to be punished for having saved for retirement!

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (252678)	12/30/2007 7:19:46 PM
From: Katelew	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Means testing could stretch the viability of social security, but I can't envision how it could put much of a dent in the future costs of Medicare. Medicare's the tsunami coming at us, not social security. How do you means test for the enormous costs of a heart problem or a stroke? And cancer puts you completely out of the ball park. Europe will fare better than we will because their health care costs, in the aggregate, are substantially lower than ours are.