Fix that problem and Medicares debt largely fixes itself (though raising US taxes above 1950s levels would help, too.) Continue ignoring that problem and Medicare will go bankrupt—about a decade after all PRIVATE insurance, whose costs have risen about 35% more over the past decade.

Deliberately starving the beast, then pointing to its emaciated body as "proof" of its failure, is insultingly disingenuous. Slashing all funding (or giving surpluses away as tax cuts like we did SS) then saying, "See? The program is bankrupt: UNSUSTAINABLE111" is dishonestly stacking the deck. If I mug you and take your wallet, your resulting impoverishment does not prove you a spendthrift.

However, thanks for proving my point that Republicans no longer consider Medicare the sacred cow it has been for the last three decades.