Social Security and Medicare

The Jan. 24 cartoon by Michael Ramirez portrays Medicare and Social Security as a broken-down Edsel demanding to be filled up by the taxpayers. My parents have received excellent care and I wish to have the same level of excellent medical care in my old age. No tax cut thought up by Congress will enable me to have those same benefits on my salary. The idea of giving a voucher to pay for health insurance to the elderly and disabled appalls me, in view of how the insurance industry has whittled health care down and rationed it to those of us who receive our health insurance through our employers. I hold Congress and the president responsible for fixing Social Security and Medicare.

SALLY PATAKY

Whittier

*

If the Edsel had lasted only half as long as Social Security and Medicare, it would still be around. To infer that Bill Clinton’s idea of using a large portion of the current surplus to bolster Social Security would be some sort of taxpayer rip-off is pure tax-rebate Republican dogma. Ramirez chooses not to understand that surplus funds can help make millions of taxpayers’ futures more secure.

LOU JACOBS JR.

Cathedral City

*

Social Security funds should not be invested in the stock market. The inherent structure of the stock market is that of a “zero-sum game,” meaning that for every winner, there is a loser. For every buyer, there is a seller. When more people want to buy than sell, stock prices go up. This is the current situation, as the unusually large population cohort known as the “baby boom” is reaching the peak of its earning power and has money to invest. But when the baby boomers retire, they’ll be taking more money out of the market. More sellers than buyers, and all prices will drop. The tide will recede. Those who depend on the stock market for their Social Security reserves will see nothing but mud flats where the bay waters used to be.

BRUCE JOFFE

Piedmont

*

The problem of the future solvency of Social Security may be real, but it is also distracting public and media attention away from the fact that more and more disabled people are being told that they are “not quite disabled” or “no longer disabled,” losing or being denied disability income and thus becoming homeless. This problem should receive at least equal public attention. More than a few homeless have recently died unnecessarily, thanks largely to the ever-increasing callousness and mismanagement of certain programs, including SSI. Are Americans more worried about a comfortable retirement later than the rash of wrongful deaths and torments occurring now?

BRENT BAKER

Isla Vista