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The federal government has long worked to prevent people from doing just that. That is, if you accept Social Security money *at all*, you are automatically enrolled in Medicare. And once in, you cannot easily get out.

Therefore, the way to get people off Medicare and Social Security is a several step process, done in such a way as to minimize the number of people harmed by the reform.

To start with, make a deal for older people still earning income from all taxable sources, that if they refuse to take either Social Security or Medicare, they can deduct slightly more from their taxable income.

This would mean saving more money than they are getting from the government. But if they need that money, they still can get it.

It also turns Medicare for them into something more like insurance, with a deductible, and savings for the money they do not spend on health care, thus encouraging them to shop around.

The next step is to expand the deal to those most of the way through to retirement. If they are still working, though, they can get deductions for their current year plus a previous year.

Then limit new entries into the SS system to just minimum wage earners with no other source of retirement. Everyone else is out of that system. This would slash the future size of SS by three quarters or more.

Everybody else gets IRAs.

The last piece of the puzzle is to make Medicaid entirely per capita block grants to states. With the provision that if they cheat to drive out their poor, their funding gets slashed.

It has always been a mystery to me that people would eagerly seek dependence on Medicare and Social Security controlled by an all powerful government. The actuarial cost of both programs are directly increased when people live longer and decreased significantly if people’s life spans are shortened.

If the government ever figures out how to kill off those who vote against them and spare those who voter for them, they will be in liberal paradise.

Just saying.