Excellent Opinion Piece on Medicare Expansion

Scott Burns, a financial affairs columnist for the Dallas Morning News, has an excellent piece today spelling out the true impact of the recent Medicare expansion. (Free registration required. Destined for the archives in the near future).

Scott is a member of the boomer generation, but his thinking on this issue is, refreshingly, fair and clear. He calculates the bill that our current elders are presenting to my children as $43.5 trillion. He essentially restates the libertarian nugget "TANSTAAFL." At some point benefits must be decreased or taxes increased (no!) to prevent a massive default under the system.

I hope in my lifetime to see some significant extension of the human lifespan. I expect it, actually. I am ready for the future of Bruce Sterling's Holy Fire,
even its dystopian aspects.

As a consequence, I think we need to be ready to rethink our "social obligation" to our elders. Medicare and Social Security, in my mind, are unconstitutional -- they are well beyond any reasonably necessary or proper enumerated power of the federal government. But are we ready as a society to take more personal responsibility for saving, for being ready to work in our retirements, to take care of our parents and grandparents? We need to be. Fortunately, if we do see some sort of "boosterspice" in our lifetimes, we will be young and healthy enough, even at the age of 65, 70, or even 90 to continue to be active and productive citizens and not wards of the state.