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Universalism without the targeting: privatizing the old-age welfare state
1LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin, PO Box Y, Austin, TX 78713-8925, USA. pherd@mail.utexas.edu
The Gerontologist
|June 4, 2005
Summary
Conservative efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare have failed. A new strategy wraps privatization proposals in universal program frameworks, aiming to reduce redistributive elements rather than popular features.
Area of Science:
- Social Policy
- Economics
- Public Welfare
Background:
- Previous conservative attempts to reduce Social Security and Medicare through means testing and benefit cuts have been unsuccessful.
- Conservative critics have shifted strategies from direct retrenchment to incorporating privatization proposals within the existing universal framework of these programs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To analyze the new conservative strategy of "privatization" proposals for Social Security and Medicare.
- To understand how privatization proposals adapt universalist principles while aiming to retrench specific program facets.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of conservative policy proposals concerning Social Security and Medicare.
- Comparative examination of privatization strategies versus past retrenchment efforts.
Main Results:
- Privatization proposals adopt key universalist tenets like broad eligibility and maintaining living standards, which contribute to public support.
- Unlike past efforts, privatization focuses on reducing the redistributive elements of social insurance programs rather than their core popular features.
Conclusions:
- Privatization represents a novel approach to reforming social insurance by leveraging universalist appeal.
- This strategy aims to retrench the redistributive functions of Social Security and Medicare while preserving their widely supported universal characteristics.