SS can be saved simply by slowly pushing out the age of retirement (which they should do, and I say that as someone 30+ years before collecting, as life expectancy is higher) and making a couple of tweaks around the edges. Medicare and Medicaid though are time bombs and the boomers didn’t even remotely close to pay in the cost of their medicare. The money isn’t there and reforms are going to have to be made.
As I recall, Ronald Reagan had a social security commission which studied the issues of Social Security. As I recall, they increased taxes at that time, along with gradually raising the retirement age for younger people from 65 to age 67 and some months, for the youngest as I recall.
These changes were supposed to put Social Security on an even financial footing.
Since we know Social Security does not have a balanced budget, and we also have years of warning ahead of time, we could make minor changes now to fix things.
As to whether there is political will, that’s another story. Probably any proposed changes will have the liberals screaming about throwing Granny on Social Security off the cliff, and then so nothing will be done.
And frankly, we can't afford to pay for 25-30 years of SS retirement.
“Medicare and Medicaid though are time bombs and the boomers didn’t even remotely close to pay in the cost of their medicare.”
Medicare can not possibly break even because the existence of government interference drives medical costs up many times what they would normally be. I am 73 and have never yet used my medicare benefits for anything but most people my age would be better off had medicare never existed, the costs would be so much lower that they could pay out of pocket and come out better.