Actually, the insurance industry has been making that same claim for years.

They say it to justify high premiums for people who probably don't need insurance, or at least who should be paying a lower premium to reflect their real risk plus a contribution to the overall pool and/or as an investment towards later costs. Instead the later costs are palmed off to Medicare and surpluses are creamed as profit.

As for reform, it seems to be going the way of his other policies right now. The majority seem to think that it is a good idea to help those who are not economically in a position to help themselves and they are all for raising taxes on those who can afford it to accomplish it. However, everyone's idea of who those folks are whose taxes will get raised is always 'the other guy.' It's never them. No one thinks they can afford to have their taxes raised, but they want it done. They just want the other guy to pay for it.

The reality is that you are reliant on those who follow to pay your healthcare in retirement. No matter how much you've contributed towards Medicare, it won't cover your requirements and the surpluses of your youth have been creamed off as profits, so they aren't available either. Today's approximate effective $30K annual premium for over-65s probably will be $50K by the time you need it: few will have contributed that, meaning there will be a significant shortfall. People who want to deny benefits to illegals today might like to reflect that a majority of future taxpayers are likely to be from or associated with that demographic, so perhaps they will wish to return that favor- IOW to advantage themselves against undeserving benefit spongers who expect to pull out more than they put in.

Unless they come up with a fair way to distribute costs, including use of surpluses to build a future payment pool rather than to generate bumper profits today, I foresee serious problems downstream.