Try this: Medicare patients who have been paying into the system for decades are getting fewer services and far, far higher copays. Trending now and I can only hope that Medicare will be there for me if I should ever need it.
If you know anyone approaching Medicare age, urge them to have every single thing that might possibly go wrong in the next thirty years fixed NOW before they have to rely on the shrinking-daily Medicare benefits.
But why would changes to Medicare affect Texas and Washington so differently? Medicare is a federal program.
I’m 46, but this sort of scenario is what scares me to death:
I get to be 70 or so and need knee/ hip replacements. (My father needed both hips replaced in his mid 60s, fairly early, so my concern is stronger due to family history.) By that time, in the 2030s, Medicare will be so depleted — notwithstanding my having “paid in” for nearly 50 years — that I will be told, “Although hip replacement is indeed ‘indicated,’ you are too old to justify the cost. Sorry; if only you were in your 40s or younger, it would be a better ‘investment.’ We have a nice walker and a bottle of ibuprofen for you.”