Posted on 04/08/2017 2:11:46 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Thanks for the detailed and considered response.
Of course, Medicare recipients are on average taking out far more than they put in—making it one of the biggest wealth-transfer entitlements we have. My own parents I’m sure are in that category, though they also pay for the supplements, and I of course wouldn’t want anything different for them. Or three-year-olds with MD, etc.
Really, there are two issues complicating each other here. One is the lack of free markets and free market pricing, which drives up the costs.
The other is assuring that everyone gets the care they need, which for the large part already happens. Should there be means testing for Medicare above a certain threshold of costs? I think so. Likewise, those who for whatever capability or life-choice reasons incur bigger bills than they can afford short of bankruptcy, I think it could be argued should go through bankruptcy before the taxpayers start simply picking up their bills.
Again, I look to the fairness issue for those we force to stay impoverished for their Medicaid and those we allow to stay more affluent, while forcing others to pay their bills.
It sounds like we are in agreement that some sort of sliding scale approach to Medicaid support should be used to encourage those on Medicaid (and SSI—I know people who get qualified for that in a rough patch, and then are afraid to ever work again because they don’t know if they could get coverage again if they felt at some point they needed it).
A lot of our job outsourcing now, for example, goes to call center work in India and the Philippines, when many of our in some way disabled folks would be perfectly capable of learning to do that work from their own home.
Looking at the bogus nonrepeal repeal of Obamacare the GOP are trying to palm off on us when they control the House, Senate and presidency, however, doesn’t bode well for our being able to straighten out all of the perverse incentives, fraud, and exorbitant costs currently larded into our system.
No 6 issues, Big Pharma, Big Health ins, Congress, FDA, Lobbyist, no congressional over sight on any of these programs. I might even add in a 7th bad doctors with those bad drugs. India, Japan, Spain have all Banned Gardasil which is a 8 strain vaccine that has 30 strains. India is Suing Bill Gates and Monsanto for EUGENICS. Why is it still being pushed on both boys and girls it is a STD issue, not a cancer one another researchers lie like climate changers.
Of all the population Baby Boomers live the longest if they are White vs Minority races. Average of 10-20 yrs longer.
When a person pays into SS & Medicare all their working life from 18-65 and dies before they can collect Medicare and SS keep every dime. My pastor died of a sudden massive heart attack, he was the picture of health, took no meds, some vitamins only, the month before his first SS check was due. What isn’t used is then in the general fund of SS/Medicare for those who use to much to rely on. Some of that can be directly put on hospitals and doctors who are bill padding. Why would you run tests on a person at deaths door, on a breathing machine with hours to live? To Pad the Bill. As his wife paid in less she drew off his, they kept her 40 yrs of Taxes.
That doesn’t count the TRILLIONS congress stole from Medicare or SS. Much less the Fraud and Waste which they are now digging up, much as Dr. Carson is digging up the Fraud and Waste at HUD. Another failed government program meant to keep the poorly educated in poverty. It is how the Lords/Masters/Kings control Serfs centuries ago all they had was oral history which gets distorted with each telling. Books were written in Greek or Latin, only the wealthy could afford a few as they were hand written until the Printing press was developed, that changed everything. It is also why slaves were forbidden an education. Even History can’t be truly believed as the Victor writes the History.
It's a good post-collapse blueprint, though.
Many, many problems for sure.
SS comes at least close, so far, to average payments in equating average payments out. Medicare is way, way over on such spending. And of course all of that is taking into account those who croak before drawing back out all that they put in.
Also, I do believe that Hispanics and Asians both on average outlive whites in the U.S., no?
The Constitution mandates the FedGov to guarantee weights and standards. That should be extendable to truth in ingredients and purity of product. I don’t think it covers licensing of any sort.Private organizations would most surely arise that would offer certificates of competence and excellence. There is nothing in the Constitution to prevent states from licensing. When you have a nagging worry that “something might go wrong” as I did for years, consider that with everything the government involves itself in outside of its mandated purview, something always goes wrong, usually all of it and these things don’t get fixed quickly or sometimes at all because they are a matter of bureaucratic and political inertia and face saving.
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