Simple Point: Social Security is an insurance program. And the point is not a semantic one. In conventional insurance, the more people participate, the lower the premiums and the more secure the plan. This is particularly so since those who have the least immediate need for the insurance are the most likely to opt out. Just so in Social Security. The more people opt out of the system with private accounts, the greater the costs for those who choose to hold on to their Social Security with its guaranteed benefits. And in this case that translates into either higher taxes or reduced benefits and most likely both. Social Security can only work with near-universal participation.
That is what the push for private accounts is all about. It means the end of Social Security by stages.
(Private health insurance carriers, of course, try to get as many healthy people as possible and as few sick ones, a tactic policy wonks call ‘creaming’. But it’s the same difference since that only means forcing the costs of the ill off on to government programs like Medicaid or emergency rooms and the like.)
Private Accounts = Ending Social Security. The advocates of private accounts know that. Which Democrats and Republicans will sign on?
