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I would be much happier if the money I paid into social security/medicare just went directly to my parents instead, yes. And even without the coercion of the state, it's not like children sending money to their parents is anything new. My mom has sent remittances to her mother in brazil for decades. That's effectively the same thing. If she hadn't been unfairly taxed to pay for feckless american non-parents she could have sent even more money back, and had more money to save for herself.
So you admit that taxing the youth to pay for medicare and SS are draconian, and yet you think somehow socializing the benefits makes them any better?
Remove the taxes. Remove the social programs. If parents are good parents, their children will be happy to help them. If parents are bad parents, then they deserve what they'll get. If non-parents don't plan for the future, they don't deserve society's help. If non-parents try and invest responsibly for the future, they shouldn't be stymied by the fact that they have to also pay for the upkeep of bad parents and lazy non-parents.
What's "nebulous" is Medicare and Medicaid. Thanks to the demographic crisis, I have zero expectation of getting any substantial old-age benefits. So why should I have to pay for the lazy old people that hollowed out the base of the demographic pyramid in the first place?
And since I'm getting this vibe that you're blue-tribe, and suspect you're just not interested in arguments about personal responsibility, let me try also appealing to a value I suspect we share:
The fact that dumb old people don't need to keep younger generations happy to receive benefits is why we have trump, climate change, and the housing crisis. Gerontocracy thrives off the back of old-age welfare.
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