Medical care used to be a lot cheaper but "doctor bills" still had to be paid.
Back in the 50's Doctors drove Cadillacs and Lincolns, they lived in nicer houses than the rest of us and their kids had better toys.

We have suffered a quiet inflation, fueled mostly by technology, where everything costs many times what it used to. The only thing that hasn't gone up is wages.

Didn't they used to call that stagflation?

I call it end stage capitalism.

In addition we now have, apparently, a HUGE amount of paperwork to deal with too. It was my belief that Obamacare was working on that as well as standardizing all the software. That, again apparently, has been stopped along with the data that would have, over time, been able to be studied so that better outcomes could be predicted, unnecessary done away with, etc.

Apparently Obamacare was also moving the healthcare expense curve as well. That's now been fixed as well.

All that kind of stuff would have cut into the profit part of the for profit healthcare we have so it makes sense to put an end to that kind of nonsense.......... Basically, them clever Republicans flat out understand the "for profit" part and work very hard at 'helping'.

Everything useful the government used to do has pretty much been shut down.

Some folks claim the economy is doing well, but that "wellness" only accrues to people who own stock or rental property. Some huge percentage of middle class families don't have the cash reserves to pay for a $400 emergency, without selling something. One unexpected event and they could be homeless or bankrupt. One missing paycheck and they are screwed. Rentiers are doing great, renters, not so much.

In particular, Trump voters are probably suffering the most. Lost manufacturing jobs, tariffs on steel and aluminum, and now agricultural products. You know who is probably doing okay? Any of those coal miners Hillary told to get retrained for something else, who actually followed her advice.

Here is an interesting link on the retirement thing:
https://www.thestreet.com/retirement/average-retirement-savings-14881067

Can't resist. "The Homeless" is a lousy description of the problem. Last figure I heard was that 47% of the 'homeless' have mental problems. This country has been relying on our system of prisons to take care of the most extreme cases as most real facilities have either been shut down or are failing. Then there are the plain flat out bums who prey on the rest of the homeless. There are also the elderly married who lived on both their social security checks then one dies, they own nothing, and the single social security checks won't pay the rent. Our local high school is also full of homeless kids who have parents who are over 50 and cannot find jobs. As far as I can tell cities are having a serious problem dealing with folks living out of their cars, motor homes, trailers, etc. too. Its a serious problem that needs fixing and there is no way to do that in one fell swoop. I could go on and on about this one but, I suspect, everybody knows about this one. I do know that where I live we have a really serious problems and our city council has decided not to recognize it at all. I know a friend who went to a meeting to ask about it and, before he could as the question, was told that the council has "bigger fish to fry" and just shut him down.

Interesting times.............

Come on man! The economy is booming. Our Savior Trump told us so.

Well, there is that!