I kind of like Medicare Part C. It is a good deal for me, and clearly, it's advantageous to the private companies providing it, or they wouldn't be competing too hard for everyone's business.
Higher and Faster Growing Spending Per Medicare Advantage Enrollee Adds to Medicare's Solvency and Affordability Challenges Medicare spent $321 more per person for Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollees than it would have spent for the same beneficiaries had they been covered under traditional Medicare in 2019. This was a consistent trend before 2020. Fewer people went to the doctor for routine visits in 2020 due to covid. Medicare costs went down for those not enrolled in a MA plan. But costs for Medicare went up, because the contracts with private companies for MA plans were fixed at the beginning of the year.
Social Security and Medicare money is smoke and mirrors like all of our fiat money. It makes sense it will be cut off. an'Borrowing' from the SS 'Trust' fund started with Reagan because it was only taxes. Eventually it was no longer borrowing till Clinton claimed a balanced budget using the last of the funds. Now, they want to get people to SAVE instead of wanting everyone to borrow as had been the plan. Debt is Good!!! was the call. OOOPs, we just figured out that was a big mistake which is why there is no point not to flush all our money into Ukraine and illegals. It is not build back better it is collapse and let the chips fall where they may, for a while.
The "borrowing " began with LBJ. He used it to finance both his welfare programs and his war in Southeast Asia. They worried about deficits in those days, and borrowing from SS kept the spending off the books. As far as I know, every administration since then has used the trick. They haven't really needed it since Clinton, however, since I don't think we have had a budget since then.