We need to get rid of the waste and fraud in Medicare - maybe it should be turned over to a private company.
But 'get rid of'? What could it be replaced with? What do the people who pre-paid for the insurance for decades then use for insurance?
What is needed, along with cleaning up the waste and fraud is to stop giving Medicaid money/coverage to the millions of people who paid little or none into it but get it because they're a drug addict or alcoholic or 'bi-polar' etc.
For example, there's a couple down the street 0 both in their 30's, that get medicaid - recovering druggie/alcoholic and bi-polar...they get all medical, drugs and counseling paid in full - no co-pay, no deductible - and about $200 each for food stamps - and a monthly disability check out of our social security funds...that we retired folk pre-paid into from the time we were 15.
That all comes out or medicare money that they didn't contribute to.
THEY should be taken off medicaid and if the gov't wants to molly coddle them, find other funding.
Don't rob medicare.
And again, if you stop medicare, what do the people who pre-paid for decades and continue to pay about $100 a month for it (taken out of their social security) do for insurance. (that's another thing the druggies et al don't pay - the $100 a month.
That’s the truly vile thing about programs like this (Medicare, Social Security, and whatever government healthcare takeover they pass):
You get a bunch of people dependent on it as they’re heavily subsidized by future payers. Then when it goes broke you have no way to end it because everyone cause say they’re owed.
The only way to unwind them is to declare a cutoff age, have people quit paying into from that point forward, and continue to pay out benefits to everyone above the cutoff age until it’s gradually eliminated.
It turns a large, endless, and ever-increasing money pit into a very large but finite red number.
Yes, get rid of Socialized Medicine, abolish Medicare and Medicaid.
As for those people who are now on Medicare, the feds should refund the money each person paid into Medicare, minus the amount of money that has been paid out for their care by Medicare.
And then those people who were on Medicare can go into the private market place and purchase private insurance.