By any reasonable reckoning, 65 years is a long time for a non-handicapped person to “make it.” Refugees from other countries have “made it” in less time. Truly handicapped people have made it.
So, given that healthy-in-their youth US senior citizens have had a solid chance to prepare for their own old age, why subsidize the ones that fail? Why take money away from people who are presumably being productive, (or they wouldn’t have anything to tax in the first place) and redistribute it to people who had SIXTY FIVE YEARS WORTH OF CHANCES to make something of themselves (to the point that they could afford their own d**n health insurance), and failed?
Further, you may ask, what are the characteristics of those people who need all that healthcare anyway? Old age may come to us all, but expensive old age is largely the fate of a few. In fact, there is empirical research that indicates that from 50% to 75% of inpatient healthcare dollars spend in the US are spent on people who are drug abusers (including alcoholics and smokers) or obese, or both. Why spend money to keep old druggies alive? They made their own choices; why burden others with the consequences?
Any answers?
I don't want us to become another Netherlands. I don't want to live like that...but that is exactly where we are going. Life has been devalued to the point that we are now cloning people and harvesting them for their organ tissue. This country has some major issues, the least of which is monetary.