EJ Dionne on why we should all want the government to set aside money for social insurance programs like Medicare and Social Security:

Why the Lockbox Won't Die (washingtonpost.com)

All of us hope we'll save so much that we won't need to rely on Social Security checks. But we can never be absolutely sure we won't need them -- what if your portfolio is bulging with Enron stock? -- so we're glad Social Security is there for everyone.

We'd like to think we won't get sick. But even the fittest in our ranks will need more medical care as they age. We subsidize and socialize health care for the elderly through Medicare because we know the dangers, as Franklin Roosevelt once put it, of having "a rich man's security and a poor man's security."

These programs, in other words, insure all of us, and insure society against having a large class of destitute elderly people.