Posted on 05/05/2007 8:48:12 AM PDT by shrinkermd
THE RELEASE ...Of all the entitlement programs, Medicare is on the most dangerously unsustainable financial course, squeezed simultaneously by rising health-care costs and an aging population.
When Congress passed the Medicare prescription drug bill four years ago, it included a mechanism designed to call attention to runaway spending in the health care program for seniors and the disabled. Medicare is funded by a combination of payroll taxes (hospital costs) and general revenue (doctor's visits and prescription drug costs). ... That alarm sounded for the first time last year and was repeated again last week. The second warning requires that the president -- in the budget he will submit early next year -- propose changes to reduce Medicare's drain on the Treasury. Under the law, Congress must quickly consider those remedies, though it doesn't have to act.
This is an especially blunt instrument to deal with an especially large problem, and the Bush administration's proposed solution, to require automatic cuts, is too crude. The challenge facing Medicare isn't how it's funded, it's how much it costs. Indeed, the program was designed to be financed in a hybrid fashion, and the very prescription drug bill that included the arbitrary 45 percent trigger tilted the mix more toward general revenue...
President Bush, to his credit, has proposed some ways of taming the Medicare monster. In this year's budget, he calls for $66 billion in Medicare cuts over the next five years. Of this, $10 billion would come from requiring higher-income beneficiaries -- $80,000 in annual income, $160,000 for a couple -- to pay higher premiums for prescription drug coverage,
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
That's also how it was when I was a kid.
One thing is for sure, I am not looking forward to Medicare at all. I've got four more years to start educating myself when it comes to dealing with them.
Maybe I'll just opt out by ramming a bullet into my head! ;^)
As long as our elected thiefs are not effected by it they could care less.
Of course, with 75 000 pages of regulations, which are changed frequently, everyone could be said to have "questionable practices"
It's the government's socialized Universal Health Care for those over 65 - whether they want it or not - thanks to LBJ.
Make every illegal alien and deadbeat who never contributed eligible for coverage...
I told my children as I was raising them (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that they were my Social Security.
Yes, I will have a pension in addition to SS that I am eligible for, but I would happily bunk up with my children and help out with their households, rather than having them taxed obscenely so I could go on Cruises.
Civilization operated this way up until the most recent three or so generations, and it won't collapse if we return to multi-generational living.
Having subsidized Senior Housing, in addition to SS and Medicare is just another extension of this raid on the next generation and Selfish to boot.
You must be living in an alternate reality. The politicians spend every penny they collect from you in taxes...and more. They will never collect money into an interest bearing account for the future. That would "cost" too much i.e. it would prevent them from spending every penny. The only reason things haven't imploded is because the massive tax revenues exceed the entitlement obligations. That comes to a screeching halt somewhere in the 2015 to 2018 time frame as the massive amount of taxes confiscated from high earning baby boomers goes away and gets replaced with obligations to pay them the entitlements they have funded all their lives.
Not true.
As long as one is employed the age does not matter until age 70-1/2.
I just had a workmate retire at 68 and he was not obligated to sign up for part A of Social Security until his work related full medical coverage was no longer in force.
Good grief. Physicians do NOT get paid by the the big evil drug companies. If they do I wonder who has been getting my money for the past 22 years. Where do people get their ideas.
other ways....STOP the mandatory 3 night stay for people that need to go to a nursing home.....
stop keeping people artificially alive when they reach 85..no tube feedings...( when they are in a chronic debilitated state with no chance of recovery.)...
require every Medicare patient to pay SOMETHING meaningful towards all their doctor visits and their meds, etc....
stop paying for scooters ...
ever wonder why the working stiffs insurance premiums keep going up?...one big reason....we're paying to offset the Medicare patients, along with the charity care...
The real issue here...is that about 30 percent of the American public over 65...are addicted to pain killers. I used to laugh about this suggested number...but in the past five years...you see more and more cases where doctors discovered that a patient was seeing two or three different doctors and getting the same prescription over and over.
OK. But it is still mandatory to participate when you start collecting SS or reach 65 - whichever comes later. This makes it a universal, mandatory health program - which the government completely controls. Even if an individual retains another health plan, Medicare is still the first payer and therefore controls the price, treatment, and rules.
Yep, my Mother-in-law has been on them for a decade and went thru withdrawal when we moved her from CA to the midwest and the Dr. here refused to supply. She eventually found another source from a different Dr.
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