Ronald Reagan: “[I]f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” [1961]
Well, Medicare passed 44 years ago today. Has our nation survived the carnage? Of course there are problems with Medicare, but overall it has done a great job of providing health care for seniors. And the market for health care has not collapsed, even after 44 years.
Admittedly, the growth of Medicare spending does pose a problem for the Federal budget. But that has a lot more to do with soaring health care costs in general, and not anything having to do with Medicare in particular. In fact, Ezra Klein points to a study showing that Medicare costs have been growing less than private health insurance premiums.
Given Republicans’ tendency to predict calamity, and given their equal tendency to be wrong, maybe we should all just take a deep breath for a moment. If the health care market didn’t collapse from Medicare, which is a (gasp) single-payer system, what is the likelihood it will collapse from a public insurance option?
To borrow a line of reasoning from Charlie Munger, When you jump out of a building on the 40th floor, and you realize has you pass the 10th floor that you’re not dead yet, it doesn’t mean you are OK.
Medicare may still be covering people today, but it is beyond flawed. It is a train wreck, and reform should begin with Medicare, not mimic it.
That’s not “a line of reasoning.” Sorry.
Cute. But not meaningful. Not pertinent.
Yes, Medicare has done so well Doctors are refusing to take patients on it. It’s working so well, that in order to make doctors take patients at the cut rate, the entire free market system needs to be replaced with a single payer system that removes the competition medicare faces and makes people lucky to get what ever crumbs are dropped to them. It works so well that rationing in medicare already exists and when medicare goes universal, starting at age 55 you’ll be told all the wonderful ways you can “die with dignity” so you can avoid being an undignified drain on society. Medicare works SO well it accounts for 12% of the federal budget (excluding medicaide ans social security) and and 8% of GDP yet only covers 15% of the population.
Yes, Medicare has been a stunning success. You should be proud of yourselves for supporting it and other sustainable programs like Social Security and public pensions.
Why do fatcat Republicans & their handful of familiars HATE INSURANCE?