No, I was never told it was some sort of insurance program. Come on. This is getting ridiculous.
On a payroll check stub it shows how much $$ is being deducted for SS, Medicare/SSI. So you tell me ... if it shows on paycheck stubs where the money is supposed to go and it's arbitrarily taken out of one's check, whose money is it? It certainly isn't their checks that $$ is being taken out of.
IT. IS. MY. MONEY.
Next.
IT. IS. NOT. YOUR. MONEY.
The money is withheld from your paycheck because the Internal Revenue Code requires employers to withhold the employee portion of the payroll tax from the employee's wages and remit the tax to the IRS. IRC § 3102.
All taxes collected and remitted to the government are to be "collected by the Secretary and shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States as internal-revenue collections." IRC § 3501.
Finally, the tax imposed on the employee is an income tax: "In addition to other taxes, there is hereby imposed on the income of every individual a tax equal to 6.2 percent of the wages (as defined in section 3121(a)) received by the individual with respect to employment (as defined in section 3121(b))." IRC § 3101(a).
So, what the law - the binding, enforceable at the wrong end of a gun, if you like, rule - says is that (a) if you're an employee, an additional income tax is imposed on you (a tax on your income), IRC § 3101, (b) that tax is withheld from your wages by your employer and remitted to the government, IRC § 3102, and (c) the taxes remitted by your employer are to be collected by the Secretary of the Treasury (or his delegate, i.e., the IRS) and paid into the U.S. Treasury as internal revenue, IRC § 3501.
That is the law; all the rest of it is empty labeling and lies that were told to you to get you to swallow this regressive new tax.