Wrong. Medicare isn't welfare. Medicaid is the 'welfare' health insurance.
Medicare is just like Health Insurance and it has premiums due each month. So I pay for that Medicare 'Insurance' every month as does everyone whose on it. And I've paid for that Medicare coverage since its inception.
And no one is paying for me. To think that is to think anyone with Health Insurance is being supported by others. If you have Blue Cross and pay 'x' dollars a month then have a Surgery that costs $140k, its the other in your Insurance Plan (Company) that picks up the remaining portion (+/-20%, or $28,000) of your costs with their premiums. Medicare is the same.
I don't get where people got the idea that 'Medicare is free'? People on it pay and pay more out of pocket than those with regular insurance. And again, they've paid for it their whole working lives. Payments don't stop when you retire.
Again, Medicare is not Medicaid.
What you are paying is a premium for either a Medicare Advantage plan or a medigap policy, which cover services that "regular" Medicare does not cover.
Those supplemental policies are actuarily sound, because the insurance companies that offer them are required to keep them so.
If the core Medicare program were "just like health insurance" it would be required to be stable on an actuarial basis. The premiums would have to rise, or the benefits be cut, to bring the future liabilities into line with anticipated revenues.
They aren't, and it isn't.