General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: House Democrats Unveil Social Security Expansion Bill With Unprecedented Support [View all]haele
(12,648 posts)5% of 2% isn't a huge increase. And if they do the same to Medicare for "Medicare for all", more people will be able to afford their health care also.
Health care and pensions/old age insurance will cost money anyway. As most Americans pre-1950 well understood. Mortality was pretty high, and my mom remembers walking to school once when she was 7 or so - back in 1945/46 - and seeing the homeless neighborhood drunk "asleep" - or rather dead - in the street before the coroner could come out and carry the body off. Her mother painfully died a few years later of what was even then preventable and treatable cancer with surgery because as working class folks, they just didn't have the money, and there was no Social Security Survivor's benefit for the kids to help Pappy cope, even though both her mom and dad had Social Security numbers and both worked until her mom got sick.
I look at SSI and FICA as a way of insuring that not only will there be a safety net, but that everyone has "skin in the game" to maintain a healthy society. If you're getting a valuable service for the taxes, even a delayed service, it's a good thing.
Haele