What We Expect From Government

Medicare and social security haven’t changed much over the years but people’s expectations have changed quite a lot.

In 1965, we had an old woman who was willing to sell the farm in order to pay her husband's hospital bill. Hananeko_Studio/Shutterstock

I have been writing this column since 1997. So this will be my 27th year of helping people to better understand all the intricacies of the various Social Security programs. But I was recently reminded that I’ve been doing that a long longer.

While cleaning out my desk, I discovered a folder of newspaper columns I wrote way back in the 1980s while working at the Social Security office in Boise, Idaho. I had forgotten about the fact that during most of the four years I worked in that office, I wrote a weekly Social Security column for the local Boise newspaper.