Most of those that I know on Medicare don't feel the least bit bothered by the fact. Most of them paid into it long before they were eligible, every week, every every paycheck, every payday, week in and week out, year after year. Even now it's not ‘free’ by any stretch of the imagination. The basic cost is about $90 a month, but you have to have supplemental coverage to avoid being overwhelmed by a major sickness. My supplemental coverage costs me $140 a month, plus I pay another $40 or so for my drug coverage. I have co-pays for every office visit and every prescription. My meds cost me $150 a month over and above the coverage, with a $275 deductible. If I go over a certain amount in drugs in a year I have to pay %100 of the costs until another plan kicks in. And I have a $185 deductible for doctor's visits. True, to have private coverage equal to this would cost me more than the $400 or so a month that I pay, but I consider the thousands of dollars I paid in Medicare taxes during my working years to be my part of paying for the additional. Before I was eligible for Medicare I had group coverage through my employer. When I left, downsized, my COBRA was just over $500 a month, plus meds.
I figure throwing out the Medicare angle of the story was intended to offset the fact it was a pro-Obama guy that did the biting, despite early reports in the LA Times.
Medicare didn’t treat the patient, a doctor did. Now why doesn’t Schuster, that human pimple, ask the doctor if he would like to do without the monster bureacratic demands of Medicare. Want to bet what the answer would be?