Let's insist on calling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid what they are: earned benefits, not "entitlements."
"Entitlements" suggests these programs are some sort of giveaway to people who are not all that deserving (and of course we know who those folks are, don't we?) But I believe we, and our community, have earned each of these programs.
I turned 65 not long ago. I'm now registered for Medicare. And I'll start collecting Social Security one of these days. I worked full time more than 40 years - and I'm still working full time - to earn these benefits. Sure, I'm "entitled" to them - because I earned them.
But I have also worked hard so that people in my family and my community who can't work - children in poverty, disabled adults, those left jobless by the economic meltdown brought about by greedy financial pirates - can get help and healthcare. I work so they won't need to beg on the streets or show up in the emergency room of our medical school, desperate and hungry and sick. Our community has earned the benefits of caring for our poor and sick with supplemental SS and Medicaid.
So let's quit using the term "entitlements" and speak out for keeping the benefits we have earned, and expanding them to provide more help to those at greatest need.