Social Security compared to Affordable Care Act

Substitute a few words, and it's a good description of ACA in our era. "We find it hard to conceive of a greater triumph of imaginative packaging than the combination of an unacceptable tax and an unacceptable benefit program into a [health insurance] Social Security program that is widely regarded as one of the greatest achievements of [Obama's first term] the New Deal." Milton Friedman, Free to Choose, 1980.

Just in case you think Social Securty actually is a good deal, remember no one can subsist on the benefit it provides, which I think is maxed at about $28,500.  It takes 2 workers paying in today to support one retiree (there were 17 in the 1950s, 42 in 1945), it's regressive--the low income workers are less likely to live long enough to collect what they paid in, spouses who never worked get the same amount as those who did, millions who paid in (like me) will get nothing because of another government pension, or die before collecting like my sister who began working at 14 and died at 57, and won't be able to pass it along to their children.

Yes, it is a wealth transfer program--from the young to the old. From the poor and the rich to the middle class. Another similarity to the Affordable Care Act.