'Government has considerable experience with administration of employee benefits, and the public has ample evidence of its track record, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, state public sector pension plans, and various state insurance funds,' said Mitchell B. Langbert, a business instructor at Brooklyn College Koppelman School of Business.
Langbert worked for the New York State Legislature in the 1990s. Political leaders would regularly use the workers' compensation State Insurance Fund and state pension funds to manipulate the state budget.
“That is a national pattern,” he said. “Pew reports that the average public sector pension fund is only 72 percent funded.”
Poor History
The history of Social Security is similarly subject to political risk, Langbert said. “Benefits were raised in the early 1970s, then they were reduced in the early 1980s,” he said. “As of today, future liabilities are expected to be underfunded in 16 years.
Medicaid and Medicare have had repeated fraud problems, Langbert said.
“Given this record, why would you expect that the public would be eager to have government entities manage employee benefit money?” he asked. “Do France and Greece offer better examples? Or does the USSR, which devalued the ruble and destroyed its citizens' savings?”
Suffice to say, Langbert echoes what many Americans are feeling about the ability of U.S. political leaders to be effective.
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