The bottom line is that Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are dead already, Jim. The only difference in the future will be how we get from here, with unsustainable largesse programs, to there, with the national government getting out of the largesse business.
There is no choice involved. Tinkerbell will not live if all the children clap their hands. The big three largesse programs will not live even if everyone who paid money into them really, truly wants something back for their money.
Sorry, that money was spent, often decades ago. The cupboard is bare.
Those people who believed they were going to get their money back are going to be screwed, shafted. But they were the ones who kept voting for the honey-covered, if forked tongued devils, when they were young, dumb and healthy.
Now that they are old and infirm, they get to take it in the shorts.
Congress could make medical expenses tax deductible from the first dollar for this group.
I've worked all these years...
I can't collect for maybe another 6-10 years but dammit....I need the money and I have earned it...