I certainly agree that people should work while they can and retirement and pension was only supposed to cover a few years when you could no longer work.

Holy Mackerel! Call Ripley! We actually agree on something.

When the UK pension system was initially created most people died before or shortly after pensionable age.

Same thing here for Medicare. I am pretty sure that when Social Security stared here in the 1930's life expectancy was not much more than 65.