Gleeful Begala: Expanding Medicare is the ‘ultimate public option’
This is pretty straightforward. Medicare is government-run health care. So guys like Begala are stoked that the Dems are going to expand the eligibility from 65 down to 55. The problem, as the other guy in the clip mentions at the end, is that Medicare is going broke. And the sticky wicket for the Dems is that they were going to finance the original Senate public option by cutting Medicare by 1/2 trillion dollars.
So, now what’s the plan? We know nearly half of all doctors already refuse to see Medicare patients because the government paycheck is so low, so how exactly would people get more access and better coverage by opting for the Medicare coverage? If you are in the 55-65 range and you see how easily the Dems are willing to loot Medicare, why would you think that is going to be a reliable program? Add to that the fact that Medicare denies more claims than private insurance companies, and you have to ask, who is really going to think this is an awesome deal?
H/T to Jacob M.
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Well Bill I have to agree with you, the health care bill does little to address the greed in the system and without a pool of healthy contributors to the system we still have a problem in this country. By the way Medicare denies more claims because there are more fraudulent claims that need to be denied, part of the waste and fraud savings and they actually need to deny far more and spend more on enforcement. But the solution to the problem seems to be to expand medicare even further down to maybe 40 to compete for the healthy with the private companies. But now that the republicans have reversed their position on cuts to Medicare benefits we can put more money in the system.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bill_Dupray, Sherri Draper. Sherri Draper said: RT @Bill_Dupray: Gleeful Begala: Expanding Medicare is ‘ultimate public option’: This is pretty straightforward. http://bit.ly/6hSInq #tcot [...]
Well, there you go again.
1. The Dem bill does not ‘loot’ Medicare – it removes a gift to the insurance companies in the guise of Medicare Advantage that allows them to charge 14% more for the identical services and treatments than what Medicare would pay if paying direct.
2. While it is too early to know, by increasing the Medicare pool by charging those 55-65 a higher premium, while they are less likely to be ill than those currently enrolled, we may very well see this remove pressure from the fund.
3. You don’t even know what the payment rates will be yet for those in the lower age bracket, so why are assuming that this is going to so greatly displease physicians? What’s more, while I certainly support physicians in receiving the payment they are entitled to, do you think that they can stay in business seeing only young people who avoid doctors like the plague?
It would be so nice to read an analysis, anywhere, that doesn’t simply mouth today’s GOP line- whether it has merit or not.
Rick, $500 billion in cuts to Medicare is looting it. If the payments aren’t there, then benefits will be rationed or denied. Hating an insurance company cannot change market economics.
My position is a that of a capitalist who believes in individual rights as set forth in the Constitution. Those are the two foundations of our country and are the things that make us great and distinguish us from the rest of the world.
If you want to call that the latest GOP line, go ahead. It is the quintessentially American line.
Americans are not a bunch of needy 6 year olds. The left is always looking for some freebie handout for a preferred sub-group at the expense of another group. It is that welfare, nanny-state mentality that will bring us to our knees, which is exactly what the Democrats are doing right now.
Encourage people to work hard and succeed on their own merits and everyone is better off. Coddle and spoonfeed them all the things the left says they have a “right” to have, and you kill work ethic and the drive for greatness. It is about American exceptionalism, something in which Barack Obama most assuredly does not believe.
In response to another comment. See in context »What will prevent doctors from refusing to take Obamacare…..?
How about low pay? They are not indentured servants (yet) and don’t have to treat anybody if the pay is not sufficient.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Dupray,
There are million and one ways that this bill could fail but “Medicare going broke” is not one of them. The reason is that Medicare has been “going broke” since before it even began. Consider the following stories in the Los Angeles Times.
April 6, 1992 – “The new siren is a frank and gloomy assessment that the national trust fund that pays hospital bills for 34 million Americans on Medicare will be broke in 10 years.” The would be George H.W. Bush telling us that Medicare would be broke in 2002.
January 9, 1984 – “Some adjustments are needed to head off bankruptcy in the Medicare system. The trust fund that helps pay doctor and hospital bills for 29 million Americans will run out of money by 1990 if nothing is done” That would be President Reagan saying that Medicare would be broke by 1990.
June 20, 1980 – “Unless Congress acts, the Social Security fund will run out of money to pay retirement and survivors’ benefits by late 1981 or early 1982, the funds government trustees reported Thursday.”
May 6, 1978 – “The social security trust funds that pay benefits to retired and disabled workers will be in good shape for several more decades but the fund that pays hospital insurance under Medicare will go broke by 1990, the trustees told Congress today.” That would be President Jimmy Carter again with a “go broke date of 1990.
August 30, 1960 – “That the [Medicare] bill passed was totally uninformed and almost totally irrational made no difference; the Democratic Presidential candidate can cry that he wanted to do more the old folks and the Republican candidate can say that the Congress might have done less if he hadn’t been so busy…We said that he bill was total uninformed, and it is…Nobody knows what it is right to do about medical aid to the aged because nobody has determined how many need help….Moreover, the political promoters have not had the courage to declare bluntly that everybody at age 65 receive a government health stipend, regardless of need…”
Medicare was finally passed in 1965, after nearly ten years of effort. It was born “going broke and has been doing so ever since.
My hat is off to you for the research. LEt me suggest that the reason it hasn’t gone broke is that the government just borrowed the money it needed to pay the entitlements. What if Obama’s record-shattering $1.4 trillion deficit last year, when added to the same or more this year, with the same for the foreseeable future, actually bankrupts the country?
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Dupray,
Thank you for the offed hat. The reason Medicare did not go broke was that Congress and the White House kept fixing it. It is like buying a car, you drive it and as problems develop, you fix them. It was not just borrowed money, taxes were raised, rates adjusted, things like that. I would note that on January 1, 2001 there was no national deficit but rather a surplus of 230 BUSD and the debt had dropped by a record $138 BUSD while Medicare was still not broke. It is the same with the proposed medical health care reform, if it is passed, and it may not be, it will go forward and problems will be found. The White House and Congress can then make corrections. That is just how things work, no ever gets everything just right the first time.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Dupray,
Sorry, I need to add an addendum. In 1999 there was a surplus in the Medicare Fund. So if it is indeed “going broke” again and borrowing money, is has been only recently…
“Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Oklahoma, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said the GOP wants 90 percent of the surplus used for the debt. In a CNN interview, he said the other 10 percent should be used to “take care of a lot of priorities we have, like prescription drugs, making sure that our education needs are met, making sure some of our national security needs are met, and doing that while at the same time protecting the Social Security surplus and the Medicare surplus.”
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/27/clinton.surplus/
In response to another comment. See in context »