>>I don't understand.
>>What happened to your magical compounding?
>>Why were tax increases necessary?
>>Might it just be because of the insane increase in medical costs that no in 1955 could possibly envision?

I described an inflation-adjusted annual contribution that has to be put aside every year- meaning not spent. The Medicare tragedy was that contributions didn't always even cover outgoings that year, so it was a scrabbling hand-to-mouth scheme with a growing deficit parked for later. Then came inflation that made the pain of paying your own way ever greater when nothing had been put aside so far. The occasional politician who tried to point at what was happening, was soundly spanked by voters who preferred their representatives to park such things for later.

Certainly medical inflation, like education inflation, has outstripped the CPI. But that would matter far less if $ had been put aside. Compare to the education sector where colleges have invested large and small bequests wisely for decades, now allowing some universities (even in states that can't afford to fix their subways) to respond to education inflation by declaring that starting 2018, med students will receive tuition at no charge. Which is similar to what Medicare is expected to provide with nothing put aside, only today's taxpayer contributions to pay for it.