The Theft The Medicare Act was signed into Law by President Lyndon Johnson in January, 1965. It was intended as a national Health Savings Account with individual accounts called lockboxes. Each worker puts a small amount away each month during the work years, collected by the government through a payroll tax. Each person’s contributions were kept in a virtual lockbox with a specific name on it. Based on a 40-year employment period, receiving an average national salary, and with tax-deferred growth at some nominal, safe compound rate (say 3%), the average American would have amassed over $200,000 in 2013 dollars. That did not happen, because of the theft. Sometime between 1965 and 1970 (I could not discover precisely when), Congress broke open all those tens of millions of lockboxes, confiscated tens of billions of dollars, and dumped them into the General Account, to spend on anything Congress wanted. They replaced all the cash with government-issued IOUs. Cash can...(Read Full Article)