A huge part of the retirement crisis is due to skyrocketing health care costs. The tools provided with my 401(k) plan don't even mention anything else except a warning box saying "we estimate medical bills alone to be $6,500 per month when you're ready to retire."

Nationalize health care, and you gain a huge pricing lever. If Pfizer wants to charge 20% more for Viagra tomorrow, a national health program can yeet them from the formulary and their sales will be essentially zero. You could even go a step further and start nationalizing your way up the supply chain.

Eventually this will become a political crisis: there's only so many times you can hear people say "Grandma and Grandpa worked hard, saved, did everything they were told, and now they're homeless and hungry" before it starts to look really bad.