Help Me Debunk This Argument : Medicare Is Not An Earned Entitlement, It Is Welfare Program

[Igel]

14. You're entitled to benefits because Congress says so.

They collect the tax as income tax. That's their authority.

You pay what the law says. For years nobody paid "ahead." It was still an entitlement--both for those that paid in nearly nothing and those that have paid for 40 years and retired yesterday.

You get what the law says. They halve benefits next week, that's what you're entitled to because that's what the "title"--the law--says. It's a political, not a legal or moral decision, to have future benefits tied to current and on-going earnings. That it's confused so many and led them to think it's somehow an earned, irrevocable right is testament to the political decision. That politicians have confused so many of their own constituents is an embarrassment.

Medicare and Medicaid are also entitlements. The SpEd program at the local elementary school is an entitlement--even for the kid whose parents are in the country illegally and just arrived last July. SNAP is an entitlement. In all cases, if the law says you're entitled to it, you're entitled to it. What you're entitled to is, by definition, it's an entitlement.

People want to avoid being "on welfare" and "receiving a handout" so they have all kinds of extra-legal arguments rooted in their own private moralities and ideologies to show that they aren't like the low-lifes collecting welfare. "Why, the nerve of people--thinking I need handout!" ("Not that there's anything wrong with collecting public assistance--that's a good thing!" they may say. But they're just trying to dispel the impression of disdain and contempt they already have expressed for their lessers, whatever their voting habits. They consider themselves to have earned something so (a) it's something they earned and (b) not "charity" or a "handout". It's still an entitlement.)