Believe me, I'd like things to be such, that everyone is well cared for, and every retiree can spend their golden years on their private yacht, and if you didn't get a new car every 3 years or so, you'd be considered 'poor'.
However, where I live, is on Earth, where it just can't be afforded.
In fact, SS & Medicare are on a path where they cannot be afforded, if they aren't knocking on that door already.
So, common sense tells me, if you can see the car headed for the ditch, it is easier to steer it away from the ditch as soon as you can. Yes, you may have to drive on the shoulder, or the 'rumble bars' for a while, but isn't that better than just leaving it on cruise control, until you overshoot a corner, and wind up in the ditch?
Reforms need to be made, somewhere, and I'm trying to get a feel for what might work. The status quo will not work any longer, unless all you are worried about is getting another 10 or 15 years of your payments, and don't care about what happens next.
Social security, to me, is a hard item to pin down exactly what it is supposed to be.
If it is to be your money, returned to you, why is it, if you die before you collect, none of your heirs get the money you put in?
If it is to aid the poor, the handicapped, and those in need, why do millionaires collect it?
I think, over time, it morphed into this big bureucratic mess, where few people, if any, know exactly what is going on within all of it, or are entirely sure, of its purpose, other than to collect some money, and speread it around. Like many, or even most government programs, it has grown into something that far surpasses its original intent or purpose.
