The script is familiar: Social Security and Medicare programs, which provide critical assistance to tens of millions of older workers, are on the brink of collapse; thus the only way to return them to solvency is to dramatically reduce benefits. Better yet, the more aggressive mouthpieces of the capitalist class argue that those programs should be privatized outright and that elder care should be left entirely to the invisible hand of the free market.
These lines are both a gross distortion of reality. The trust funds that provide the resources for Social Security benefits are paid for entirely from a 12.4 percent payroll tax, split evenly between workers and bosses. Current estimates from the Congressional Budget Office suggest that the fund is solvent through 2037.
As proportionally more workers from the “baby boom” generation retire in the coming years, the funding shortfall could easily be covered by taxing incomes greater than $110,100, which are outrageously exempt under the current funding formula.
The same goes for Medicare. While spending on the program is expected to increase dramatically over the coming years, this is simply the result of demographic trends and rising life expectancy.
Even still, the Medicare program is much more efficient than predatory private insurance, which is expected to record 4.8 percent annual spending increases as capitalists gouge prices compared to just 2.5 percent for Medicare. The program could save a further $14 billion a year if it negotiated drug prices as efficiently as other government health care programs, like the Veterans Health Administration.
The ruling class tries to divide younger and older workers by arguing that the youth are subsidizing a system that will be bankrupt by the time they qualify for its benefits. They present the elderly as a drag on the economy and the aging of the workforce as a major crisis. In fact, a rational economic system would see this as a major opportunity.
For a young generation dealing with high unemployment, the retirement of older workers opens up jobs. Moreover, a planned economy would make a push now to train millions of unemployed youth in elderly and health care. Already, the elder care industry is on the precipice of a massive expansion. By 2018, 4.3 million people will be employed as direct care workers, more than as teachers, fast food workers and nurses.
Socialism is the solution
The interests of younger workers and older workers are also aligned in a much more fundamental way – both have no future under capitalism. Capitalism offers youth the prospect of unemployment or underemployment, often accompanied by crippling student loan debt. Elders face the constant threat of catastrophic medical costs coupled with substandard or unaffordable long-term care. While concessions should be fought for and defended, only socialism can guarantee the right to retire with dignity.
Respect for such a basic right means first and foremost a guaranteed, livable pension. What is considered to be the “cost of living” should be determined in consultation with organizations representing retired workers rather than solely being the domain of faceless bourgeois economists. Older women workers, who often perform unpaid domestic labor that is not recognized under the current social security scheme, would be fully covered.
As people age, they naturally will require extra assistance when it comes to activities of daily living, an area not covered by Medicare Part A. Elder care would be provided free of charge in a socialist society. Because production will be oriented towards meeting human needs, the tendency to cut corners and reduce the quality of care to maximize profits will be eliminated.
One of the greatest cruelties of the capitalist system is that the sickness and suffering of others is a source of profit for the capitalists. Health care would be a right, not a privilege in a socialist society, and the threat of catastrophic medical bills will be a thing of the past.
All this will be possible because the wealth of society and all the processes that produce it will be the public property of poor and working people. Society will no longer have to support the decadent lifestyle of a parasitic capitalist class, who perform no useful labor.
In place of their rule, socialism means that production would be carried out according to democratic economic planning. Through consultation with workers and mass organizations representing the interests of women, oppressed nationalities, students, elders, LGBT people and other sections of the working class, priorities can be set with the aim of providing a decent life to all members of society. The needs of older workers would be met as a matter of course – everyone ages, so why should people who have worked all their lives be subjected to hardships in their later years?
But the capitalists will not back down without a fight – their profits depend on it. Together, workers of all ages can beat back the attacks on Social Security and Medicare and build a movement to replace the rotting capitalist system with socialism – guaranteeing once and for all the right to retire with dignity.
