False Alarm: Why the Greatest Threat to Social Security and Medicare Is the Campaign to "Save" Them (Century Foundation Book)

For anyone seriously interested in the debate about Social Security. With the aging of the U.S. population, there is much speculation about the future of the Social Security and Medicare programs. Will they be able to provide for the increasing number of elderly people? And, if they can, will their cost endanger the federal budget and the economy? Vocal segments of society are calling for radical reform of these programs. In False Alarm: Why the Greatest Threat to Social Security and Medicare Is the Campaign to "Save" Them, Joseph White makes the case against radical reform, advocating for incremental change instead. In his book White discusses the rationale for "social insurance" programs such as Social Security and Medicare and how that relates to fears of out-of-control "entitlements." He looks at important disagreements about how the programs currently work and how their financing relates to the federal budget as a whole. He argues that changing demographics do pose challenges but that both equity and the economy would be better served by incremental reforms that preserve the programs' basic structure than by more radical proposals. White's foremost contribution is to cut through the thicket of political rhetoric and fuzzy thinking in a book that goes to the heart of the choices we must now address and demonstrates that there are a number of reasonable options available. In the process White subjects the most prominent proposals for reform—including his own—to a level of scrutiny which will benefit all readers who care about the future of these programs.