Posted on 07/30/2015 4:26:07 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
When President Johnson signed Medicare into law on June 30, 1965, he said , "If it has a few defects, I am confident those can be quickly remedied."
Fifty years later, a Government Accountability Office report found that an eye-popping $60 billion — fully 10% of Medicare's budget — was lost to waste, fraud, abuse or improper payments last year. Among the glaring defects, the GAO found 23,400 fake or bad addresses on Medicare's list of providers.
Between those two events, Medicare...
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The reason they don’t work, the reason all socialism in medicine fails, is that the consumer is isolated from the entity responsible for the consumer’s expenses. So, as the consumer, why not use the maximum amount possible? As the provider, why not bill the maximum possible? (Doctors send staff to special training to maximize billing.)
Two types of medicine have gotten better and cheaper since their introduction. Lasik surgery and cosmetic surgery. This is because the consumer actually pays for them. Providers have incentive to reduce prices and increase quality to attract customers. My, what a concept.
Yup, get gov out of the market. Folks seem to appreciate separation of church and state, but need to be educated on separation of economy and state - which is basically capitalism in a nutshell.
Worried about the poor? There’s this thing called charity...
Prior to the depression, benevolent societies were the norm and took care of folks locally. That fell apart in the depression and the gov rightly stepped in. Problem is, it never stepped out!
We’re going to be seeing a lot more doctor’s assistants or nurse practitioners. Eventually, the only time you’re going to see an actual doctor is in the operating room.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if Medicare was being administered as was originally intended, there wouldn’t be a crisis looming.
If this country wasn’t burdened with a huge influx of illegals who overwhelm the hospital ER’s with real or imagined emergencies, whatever challenges Medicaid is facing now would be manageable.
If this government would nurture a friendly economic atmosphere of only a few reasonable regulations, a sane tax code, and lose the hostile legal climate, tax revenues would skyrocket due to a sustainable booming economy.
That is the problem. The problem is not taking care of our seniors (who, btw, risked life and limb to keep us and the world free and prosperous), or helping out our poor.
Corruption in government and the courts is at the root of most of what’s doing us in. And a large and increasing number of citizens who lack virtue, and who do not love liberty.
I believe fraud is a big issue in both plans. Nothing ever seems to be done about that.
Non-elective medical treatment for illnesses that have to be treated, (a wide spectrum of illnesses - hospitalization for pneumonia, a ‘heart attack’, trauma, heart failure, cancer, etc. etc.) don't allow for the usual price haggling that one uses when buying a car etc. The hospitals/physicians can't refuse an emergent patient who won't pay them, and a patient with a non-elective urgent medical problem can't avoid treatment because the price isn't right (not without significant personal harm).
It's a dilemma, but I agree that there are lots of ways to introduce market principles into the system and drive down costs.
DEFUND/DISMANTLE socialist schemes/collectives, foreign and domestic.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat
Socialism has bankrupted the republic. BIG GOVERNMENT IS CRONY SOCIALISM. The progressive profiteers in and around government from politicians to planned parenthood are the looters.
Recent republican majority in CONgre$$?
Crickets chirping. ZERO representation.
“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.” - The Law; Bastiat
And the mainstream media won't connect the dots ...
$60,000,000,000 of US taxpayer money in one government agency lost to waste, fraud and abuse.
That’s a lot of government employee condos in Kauai.
Hillary Clinton just started The Hillary Clinton Clinic.
Why are you posting this ... don’t you know a lion was killed ?? (/sarcasm)
Earlier this week the scare story was about Social Security Disability going broke next year.
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These stories show up every few years. Not to worry, as Congress will vote for the Treasury to print more funny-money and pressure some foreign country into buying that debt.
Mrs. Thatcher said Socialism is nice until it runs out of other peoples’ money.
Well, as long as the government controls the money printing presses, their biggest fear is running out of paper or ink.
Imagine what will happen when Congress authorizes a $Trillion coin or bill. Twenty bills to a sheet — they would only need to run a few sheets each month. If it worked for Zimbabwe, it should work for the US.
Might one of the major contributors ofthis problem be fraud caused by massive illegal immigration?
Might one of the major contributors of this problem be fraud caused by massive illegal immigration?
Part of my daughter’s training in nursing school was how to give a complete physical. I suspect you are right.
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