I KNOW that I could get equal insurance coverage from pure private insurance for less than I pay out of pocket now for Part B, Part D, Part D co-pays and MediGap insurance to fill in the missing pieces with Medicare.
I do not argue that Medicare is not bureaucratic costs top heavy and wasteful. I do not agree that my use of Medicare is some gift from the taxpayers, its simply SOP government waste and ineffeciency. My portion was paid through years of taxes before retiring and now my out of pocket insurance expenses.
Any overage paid by Medicare Part A is due to a non-public alliance between medicare and hospitals and doctors by significant overbilling. Any hospitalization is played like a Stradivarius with any doctor within range submitting his bill and hospital doing unnecessary expensive testing all to get around the Medicare limitations. For instance, I just got recent Medicare statement that showed flu vaccination at Pulmonologist's office for $82 vaccine and $25 for giving the shot (I was already paying for an doctor's office visit on another issue) and Medicare paid it without a blink, because they are all in on the deal.
I do not argue that Medicare is not bureaucratic costs top heavy and wasteful. I do not agree that my use of Medicare is some gift from the taxpayers, its simply SOP government waste and inefficiency. My portion was paid through years of taxes before retiring and now my out of pocket insurance expenses.
This isn't about you. We cannot afford Medicare as it is currently structured. It will bankrupt the country. It is consuming the non-entitlement portion of the budget at an alarming rate. Obamacare is supposed to reduce reimbursements to hospitals and doctors by 31% starting next year. I doubt that will happen so the situation will actually become worse fiscally. Medicare Part A has been running in the red since 2008. Supposedly, Obamacare will extend the life of the program until 2024 until it starts having to reduce benefits. If the reductions don't happen, then Medicare Part A (HI Trust Fund) will exhaust all of its IOUs much sooner. Here is what the Trustees said:
"The HI fund again fails the test of short-range financial adequacy, as projected assets are already below one year's projected expenditures and are expected to continue declining. The fund also continues to fail the long-range test of close actuarial balance.The Trustees project that the HI Trust Fund will pay out more in hospital benefits and other expenditures than it receives in income in all future years, as it has since 2008. The projected date of HI Trust Fund exhaustion is 2024, the same date projected in last year's report, at which time dedicated revenues would be sufficient to pay 87 percent of HI costs. The Trustees project that the share of HI expenditures that can be financed with HI dedicated revenues will decline slowly to 67 percent in 2045, and then rise slowly until it reaches 69 percent in 2086. The HI 75-year actuarial imbalance amounts to 36 percent of tax receipts or 26 percent of program cost. "
I KNOW that I could get equal insurance coverage from pure private insurance for less than I pay out of pocket now for Part B, Part D, Part D co-pays and MediGap insurance to fill in the missing pieces with Medicare.
Then do it. I doubt you could given your age and whatever your medical history might be. You could have elected not to opt for Medicare Parts B and D.
Any overage paid by Medicare Part A is due to a non-public alliance between medicare and hospitals and doctors by significant overbilling. Any hospitalization is played like a Stradivarius with any doctor within range submitting his bill and hospital doing unnecessary expensive testing all to get around the Medicare limitations. For instance, I just got recent Medicare statement that showed flu vaccination at Pulmonologist's office for $82 vaccine and $25 for giving the shot (I was already paying for an doctor's office visit on another issue) and Medicare paid it without a blink, because they are all in on the deal.
12% of doctors don't accept Medicare patients now because the reimbursement rates are too low. If Obamacare reduces payments to doctors and hospitals by 31% starting next year, then the number of doctors not accepting new Medicare patients will increase even more. 40% of doctors don't accept Medicaid patients now. More people may be insured, but access will be more difficult.
In any event, read the Trustees Report for 2012 and you may learn something. Unfortunately, we have too many low information voters who don't understand how Medicare works and what dire straits we are in. They will learn soon enough.