A matter of survival

Monday, Aug. 9, 2010 | 2:06 a.m.

It would be difficult to overstate the positive effect that Social Security and Medicare have had on the lives of Americans since the two massive federal programs were enacted in 1935 and 1965, respectively. Without these programs, the United States would be without a safety net for tens of millions of individuals who rely each year on the monthly checks and medical services essential to their lives.

Last week’s report by the trustees who oversee Social Security and Medicare provided a mixed picture of their future based on projected revenue and demand. But the projections weren’t so dire as to call for a complete overhaul, as some extremist politicians would prefer. There is no need to simply roll the dice by privatizing Social Security and Medicare as Nevada Republican Senate nominee Sharron Angle advocates.

Republicans such as Steve Forbes say that younger workers should establish 401(k)-type accounts to replace Social Security and have health savings accounts instead of Medicare. As fragile as the stock market is and as ill-behaved as Wall Street has become, why subject the nation’s safety net to such risk-taking?

Social Security, which distributed benefits to 53 million people by the end of last year, is entering a rough patch where the trust fund will be paying out more money than it is collecting this year and next. This has happened before — in fact in 11 other years between 1959 and 1981 — yet Social Security managed to survive.

With the trust fund expected to be depleted by 2037, Congress should consider several options on the table that could help keep the program solvent for decades. As we said in May, recommendations by the Senate Special Committee on Aging include increasing employee contributions, lowering cost-of-living increases and raising the retirement age. Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, said at the time that all Social Security needs are “modest tweaks.”

The short-term prognosis for Medicare is more upbeat, with the trustees reporting that its trust fund will last through 2029, 12 years longer than previously thought due largely to the nation’s new health care reforms. There are still long-term warning signs for Medicare, but it would be far more preferable for Congress to fix a reliable program that was used last year by more than 46 million seniors and disabled individuals than to replace it with unproven gimmicks such as health savings accounts.

No advocate of private accounts to replace Social Security and Medicare has yet to offer a satisfactory response as to what would happen if an individual’s investments dried up. Yet Social Security has been there for its recipients for more than 70 years and Medicare has endured for more than 40 years, track records that would be difficult to beat.

Instead of trying to score partisan points by using scare tactics, it is time for Republican naysayers to realize that Social Security and Medicare are programs that are too essential to be replaced.