This short Paul Krugman post putting the Medicare and healthcare crises into perspective is worth reading. Medicare is underfunded, and conservatives propose to fix that by reducing benefits and putting retirees partially or entirely back into the private healthcare system. Medicare was created because those folks generally can’t get or afford private insurance, especially if they seem likely to need medical care. Without insurance, they have to pay 2-3 times as much for each service as the rates negotiated by Medicare and insurance companies. (I estimate that a serious illness would bankrupt more than 90% of American retirees without insurance.) We can’t fix Medicare unless we fix the larger healthcare system that costs more and has poorer outcomes than most other developed nations.