Fortunately for our discussion, we can compare a United States with Medicare to a United States without Medicare:I'm getting pretty tired of the phrase "end Medicare as we know it." It presupposes that Medicare, as it currently exists, is an efficient, well-managed, self-sustaining program that is good for both providers and insured, and that there is no need for reform. Personally I think it is a socialist abomination, but now that seniors are dependent on the teat and planning their retirements around it, we'll probably never be able to get rid of it. It's a societal cancer, just like most democratic entitlement programs.
http://en.wikipedia....Program_historyBefore Medicare's creation, only half of older adults had health insurance, with coverage often unavailable or unaffordable to the other half. Older adults had half as much income as younger people and paid nearly three times as much for health insurance. Medicare also spurred the integration of thousands of waiting rooms, hospital floors, and physician practices by making payments to health care providers conditional on desegregation.
So no, people aren't dependent on Medicare because they plan their retirements around it; they're dependent on Medicare because there was (and is) a need for it. Quite honestly, I don't see how one can argue that Medicare is a "societal cancer" unless one also believes that the United States is a country that casts aside its poor, elderly, disabled, and other vulnerable populations and tells them to fend for themselves. As high as health care costs are for the elderly, a United States without Medicare is pretty impractical and unfair for those who wouldn't be able to afford health care. I know you don't think this, but since it's unarguable that Medicare allows many elderly people to have health coverage when they wouldn't have it otherwise, it sounds to me like you're saying that the elderly are a "societal cancer."
I also don't think we're a country that should allow people to die from lack of health insurance because they happen to be poor, have a preexisting condition, etc, and the best way to do that would be government-run quality health care for all.