In her letter in the (“Opposing Medicaid Expansion,” Connection, August 20 – 26, 2014) Elinor Bartlett made it clear that she strongly opposes Medicaid expansion in Virginia. Fine, but while I strongly support her right to hold and express such a view, I cannot accept her use of irrelevant, unsupported, and factually wrong statements about Social Security and Medicare in support of her position.
As one who has followed Social Security closely for over 70 years (I received a Survivors benefit in 1940 upon the death of my Dad) I want to set the record straight on both these programs.
First, Social Security is not “bankrupt.” It has hundreds of billions in assets sufficient to pay the retirement and survivors benefits under current law for many years to come. Yes! There is an issue about whether benefits will have to be reduced in future years as our aging population lives longer and the size of the workforce shrinks. But that problem does not result from government mismanagement as Ms. Bartlett implies. It results instead from the success of another Government program, Medicare, which has been the major factor in improving the health and longevity of America’s senior citizens. While more needs to be done about greedy medical providers who have sometimes defrauded the system, Medicare delivers health care very effectively. The last time I checked, the Administrative cost of running Medicare was about 4 percent, while private sector insurance programs incur costs of about 20 percent. As Americans, we should look upon our nation’s record on these two programs with pride.
Peter Storm
Vienna