IMO means testing is the most politically viable. They can use a different method of computing benefits putting even more weight on the base earnings and how they are weighted. Regardless, the current system is unsustainable.
As far as Medicare goes by law we can only collect 25% of the funds from the Medicare tax the rest comes from the general funds. That’s like saying I want to buy car insurance but I’m only going to pay 25% from my income for it and charge the rest.
It is the law. Otherwise the premiums would be enormous and the public would never support it. Do you think the average Medicare recipient would want to pay four times what they are paying now for Medicare Part B premiums?
Right now they are effectively means testing Medicare premiums establishing different tiers of premiums based on income. I am now paying over $700 a quarter to Medicare for Part B because I sold a house last year and made significant capital gains.
Right now 65% of the federal budget goes to three areas; defense 16%, Social Security 24%, and healthcare 25%. Then 6% is interest on the debt, that is a total of 71% of the budget. So if you got rid of the other 29% of spending that would give us a surplus of about 1.2 trillion dollars. If we then kept spending in check and used the surplus to pay off the debt it would take us 20 years. Of course this isn’t going to happen.
It is actually worse once you consider the Medicaid costs (80 million people)and other so called mandatories. Defense is actually a discretionary expense.
In my opinion we are leaving future generations with a huge burden. We are going to have to do one of four things, cut spending, raise revenue (i.e. Taxes, tariffs etc.), a combination of the two, or keep borrowing and hope the whole thing doesn’t collapse.
With a $20 trillion national debt and interest rates held artificially low by the Fed, we are in real trouble if interest rates return to normal levels. The Feds hold over $4 trillion of the national debt. They are on a tiger and don't know how to get off.
An aging population is increasing the entitlement costs. Even if you were to reduce benefits and increase taxes, the gap will still be there.