>>>Let's get this straight. You're a mythical underwriter of health insurance in 1955 (there was virtually no health insurance in 1955 - medicare came along in the mid 1960's) and you're talking to a 21 year old elementary school teacher who's making about $4K year and thinks that she's really doing well.
>>>Underwriter: So, Millicent, I know you're a good person and all that, but that salary you're making.. you'll have to pay all that and more in order to fund obscene future health care costs that you can't possibly control.
>>>Millicent: %@####!!
>>>So, Millicent is milking the system???
>>>Are you serious, John?
>
>That's not how underwriting works. The main issue is to generate surpluses when risk is low and invest those to reduce the need to fleece the punters, through the magic of compound growth plus the massive asset appreciation enjoyed in recent decades.
>
>As an example, $50 invested on the sharemarket in your quoted 1955 would be worth $25K today. If invested more actively in commercial and other growth assets as insurers can manage, it could be worth substantially more. But conservatively: if an underwriter had put aside just an inflation-adjusted $50 per year through your working decades towards your future healthcare needs, at retirement you'd reasonably expect to have well over $1M put aside to cover your healthcare. Instead, a hand-to-mouth scheme was run so that when you retired, there was an estimated $47T Medicare deficit that can never be paid- meaning that Medicare is the worst sort of Ponzi scheme, one enforced on suffering Peters by government.

That sounds plausible.
However, why is my teacher the bad guy. What was she supposed to have done that she didn't do?