Most of the other people in the nation did and you are benefiting from their contributions.
How so? I'm not collecting a dime, nor do I ever expect to.
You probably paid into a pension that did not fund medicare but you still get to claim medicare. Your pension probably pays out better than social security does for most people. That's not right.
SS does not fund Medicare.
Or perhaps you did have medicare taxes deducted but not social security taxes.
That is exactly what happened.
In that case just reword what I said previously but insert medicare taxes instead of social security taxes.
Why? I paid Medicare taxes right along with everyone else.
Of course, neither I nor anyone else actually paid the actual cost of Medicare out of the payroll taxes that were deducted. That is due to the escalating cost of medical care in general.
If you did not have medicare then you would have saved more of your own money to use for future medical expenses, you would be using some of your pension to pay for medical expenses.
There is no way I or anyone else in my age group could ever have enough to pay for medical care, and no one is going to sell us medical insurance.
Medicare is the only option for seniors at this point.
If no one had medicare then all of us would have had to save and pay for medical expenses on our own and the costs of those expenses would be far lower thus making them more affordable for all.
Without Medicare, seniors would not have access to medical care. That's the big elephant in the room.
You have advocated a system in which young people take out a policy that can't be cancelled as they age. Now, that has possibilities. Such a policy did not exist when I was young, however.
Moreover, back in the '60s, medical insurance was cheap. Providing it to employees was not a problem. It was a perk that was expected with most jobs.
When my son was born in 1969, medical insurance didn't pay for childbirth. Somehow, the company thought a childbirth was something that was planned, not a medical emergency. It cost us $250 for a normal childbirth and an overnight stay in the hospital.
When my grandson was born in 2001, the same service was over $10,000.
Costs have to be reined in, or they will bankrupt the nation.