I once tried to reach a government class the facts you just related. They.most of them anyway, didn’t want to believe it. That was because their parents believed it. The whole course of their economic lives would have to change if the stopped believing that they might not get a social security check when they got old. Having them read the two cases you cite did not persuade them. They thought they OUGHT to get those checks.
Could be that their parents believed it because that is how SS was sold to the public by the Feds. And is still being sold. Very few people care, or know, about these court decisions.
If SS/Medicare deductions are added to Fed withholding deductions people might actually go into sticker shock over the amount of current taxation.
I predict the same thing will eventually happen with OCare.