Are Social Security and Medicare U.S. Subsidies?

If you were to ask me if Social Security and Medicare were U.S. subsidies my answer would have to be "Yes". But if you were to ask me if they were a form of dole it becomes much less clear. Because then the answer would be both  "Yes" and also "No". Social security is a subsidy because it is a legal program adopted during the Great Depression mostly for people over 65 years of age to give them enough money so they wouldn't starve to death when they couldn't work any more like people often did before then. But it is also important to realize that people who collect social security have often paid into this fund through every job they have had back until they were about 15 or 16 years of age. So, no it is not a dole for the people who paid into it all their lives. However, the money they paid into it was spent then and not available now. The money they are paid in now is paid for out of the money people are contributing now because the government already spent the money the people put in on other things years ago already which should not have been permitted then but it was.

However, Medicare Is both a subsidy and a dole because people don't pay into it directly. However, without it many or most people over 65 would have untimely and horrific deaths. So, Medicare allows the average person in the U.S. to live with themselves in regard to how their elders both live, are treated and how they die and under what circumstances. So, most people want Social Security and Medicare to exist just like most people will want Obamacare to exist because it is so much more humane than letting people die who don't have medical insurance of any age. If I didn't have health insurance when I got a heart virus at age 50 in 1998 I would likely have died too just like most people do when they get a serious illness without health insurance and always have died under these circumstances always.