Discussion Let's Fix Medicare

[mistercrabby]

Healthcare isn’t a right. It’s an entitlement we gave to ourselves. Or at least to some of us under certain circumstances.

 

[fskimospy]

Healthcare isn’t a right. It’s an entitlement we gave to ourselves. Or at least to some of us under certain circumstances.

Well sure but rights are just entitlements we gave to ourselves too. You don't actually have a right to life or free speech or anything else, it's just something we as a society decided to value and protect. In that respect health care can be (and should be!) a right as well.

 

[Homerboy]

The fact that the majority of folks here are too incompetent to realize that you pay for Medicare in every paycheck - and that it isn't just your CURRENT cost of using it speaks volumes.

Plenty of people are just simply too stupid to understand costs that are out of sight.

try to stay on topic for once in your life.

 

[Greenman]

Let's fix Medicare. Having only recently become eligible for Medicare I was disappointed to find out that after paying for Medicare for my whole working life that I now have to pay $142 (2020) a month to receive Medicare Part B benefits, the benefits you need if you want to be covered if and when you actually go to a doctor. Additionally you have to decide what level of coverage you want by picking from an alphabet soup of plans that vary greatly in benefits and coverage. And then there are penalties for declining Part B and Part D (drug coverage). This entire scheme by our government should constitute as cruel and unusual punishment. It shouldn't be the business of the government to reward Healthcare companies for taking care of it's obligations, nor should millions of Americans whose only income is SS. So what we should do is raise the percentage of a workers paycheck paid for Medicare enough so that when they turn 65 they are completely covered for everything. No additional payments ever. No alphabet soup to pick from. Of course this may also involve establishing strict cost structures for everything including procedures and prescription costs and possibly eliminating the private insurance sector from actually benifitting from Medicare at all (oh the horror). Due note I don't claim to be nearly as smart as all the idiots that instigated this system, but hey, you probably voted for them. Additionally I'm not running for office. Your voice may make a difference.

I have to dive into the alphabet soup of medicare in a few years, everything I've seen says to start studying now.

 

[IronWing]

Healthcare isn’t a right. It’s an entitlement we gave to ourselves. Or at least to some of us under certain circumstances.

So lets make that an entitlement for all of us and raise taxes to get it done.

 

[Homerboy]

So lets make that an entitlement for all of us and raise taxes to get it done.

Yeap!

 

[Commodus]

Healthcare isn’t a right. It’s an entitlement we gave to ourselves. Or at least to some of us under certain circumstances.

Whether or not it's a right, it's fundamentally immoral to believe that a person's health should be dictated by the size of their bank account. Cancer and other illnesses don't care whether you're rich or poor; health care shouldn't either.

I don't think it'd be as simple in the US as flicking a switch and going to government-run health care, and the likely solution for a while would be something in between that and the current system. But the ultimate goal should be a Canada- or Europe-style system where people never have to worry about whether or not they can afford necessary treatment.

 

[zinfamous]

The fact that the majority of folks here are too incompetent to realize that you pay for Medicare in every paycheck - and that it isn't just your CURRENT cost of using it speaks volumes.

Plenty of people are just simply too stupid to understand costs that are out of sight.

little early/late to start out on the misdirected, foot-in-mouth rage, isn't it?

 

[soulcougher73]

OP, if you mean fix Medicare by going to a single payer system for all, that sounds reasonable. If you mean fix Medicare by zeroing out your premiums and placing the costs of those premiums on working people to cover what you didn’t pay while you were working and still not cover working people, well, hell no. You knew or should have known the system while you were working and demanded change back then, even if it had costed you more out of every pay check. To demand that change now sounds pretty spongy.

While i agree with this in theory. Sometimes you just have to start somewhere though. Same thing happened to the first people who got SS without every paying in a cent.

 

[mistercrabby]

Don’t confuse “social justice” with rights. Our rights are in the constitution. We can pass a law to give everyone a pony and raise taxes to pay for it. But it’s not a right to have a pony.

Personally I’m willing to pay for healthcare for children. But it’s not right they have for being born. I’m not willing to pay for the results of adult choices like eating and drinking to excess, reckless behavior etc. if you choose ride a motorcycle without a helmet I shouldn’t have to foot the bill for your cracked skull.

And if you are planning your life so the government is going to take care of you in your old age then you have no one to blame but yourself for what you get.

 

[zinfamous]

OP, if you mean fix Medicare by going to a single payer system for all, that sounds reasonable. If you mean fix Medicare by zeroing out your premiums and placing the costs of those premiums on working people to cover what you didn’t pay while you were working and still not cover working people, well, hell no. You knew or should have known the system while you were working and demanded change back then, even if it had costed you more out of every pay check. To demand that change now sounds pretty spongy.

exactly. Yes, things need to be fixed, but why is it always those suddenly needing the service, that never liked "soshulism," value it in an instant, but then decide that what is actually broken about it is that other people that don't need it actually aren't paying them what they should? It's as pure a FYGM attitude as there is.

 

[IronWing]

While i agree with this in theory. Sometimes you just have to start somewhere though. Same thing happened to the first people who got SS without every paying in a cent.

If starting somewhere involves shared pain, I can find that more acceptable than yet another FYGM from seniors to workers. Fixing the health insurance disaster for everybody requires funding sources. One of those funding sources is going to have to be grossly undertaxed capital gains. Are seniors willing to see their capital gains taxed to cover their health costs?

 

[soulcougher73]

Don’t confuse “social justice” with rights. Our rights are in the constitution. We can pass a law to give everyone a pony and raise taxes to pay for it. But it’s not a right to have a pony.

Personally I’m willing to pay for healthcare for children. But it’s not right they have for being born. I’m not willing to pay for the results of adult choices like eating and drinking to excess, reckless behavior etc. if you choose ride a motorcycle without a helmet I shouldn’t have to foot the bill for your cracked skull.

And if you are planning your life so the government is going to take care of you in your old age then you have no one to blame but yourself for what you get.

We can amend the constitution to make healthcare a "right" if we so choose. This is all up to the people. No god or innate right to anything. Rights are things society gives to people. Remember when women didnt have the right to vote? Yeah..we changed that.

 

[IronWing]

Don’t confuse “social justice” with rights. Our rights are in the constitution. We can pass a law to give everyone a pony and raise taxes to pay for it. But it’s not a right to have a pony.

Personally I’m willing to pay for healthcare for children. But it’s not right they have for being born. I’m not willing to pay for the results of adult choices like eating and drinking to excess, reckless behavior etc. if you choose ride a motorcycle without a helmet I shouldn’t have to foot the bill for your cracked skull.

And if you are planning your life so the government is going to take care of you in your old age then you have no one to blame but yourself for what you get.

I disagree.

 

[zinfamous]

Everyone can already see that every year. It's called Box DD on your Fed. W2.

One of the things that you and I agree with is that the majority of people are stupid, yes?

The point here is that this information needs to be fed to people monthly, bi-monthly or whatever. No one looks at this crap once per year on their tax forms, because it is never required to be filed anywhere--and of course, being a CPA, you know that plenty of people never file their own taxes, right? So the exact people that need to know this information--the ~wealthy folks with generally great healthcare and the accompanying ignorance of what it actually costs throughout their lives, thus leading to the type of post we get in the OP--will never see it.

It's like some of the very good regulations from Obama's Consumer Protection rules that mandate cc companies include actual interest payments and costs to the consumer if they only pay the minimum every month. This is actually a new thing and, knowing you, would generate the type of response "Well, dumb people should know how much they are paying, how stupid it is for them to carry a balance--ahahaha stupid morons!" etc...but people aren't going to do that. Plenty of people just don't get it, or also have very tight budgets where they can actually afford to float on paying those minimums on top of their bills, but they can't actually pay the lump sums each month (unless they visit @highland145 to help them out that month...then of course getting themselves in even more catastrophic debt. ).

Anyway, more information is always better. The fact that this piece of information exists on a negligible box once per year, that barely anyone ever sees, is as if it doesn't exist at all. If you think people benefit themselves from being better-informed, then the only solution is to provide more information.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Rights are things society gives to people.

Not according to the US constitution. I'd rather not digress the conversation, though.

 

[interchange]

Medicare and Medicaid are already the most efficient health insurance in the country. When people talk about fixing them because they think they are too expensive that’s because the cost of service in the US health care system is astronomical. The way you ‘fix’ that is the same way you fix the rest of our health care system, which is by lowering service costs.

That's sounds easy but is not. Well, kind of. Medicare can certainly lower it's reimbursement. There would be significant efficiency increase though in single payer, and some gains with Medicare expansion overall.

To your central point, I absolutely agree that Medicare is not currently broken. It can also be improved. And to the OP I also would like a system which is free to the consumer.

 

[interchange]

Not according to the US constitution. I'd rather not digress the conversation, though.

Then call it an entitlement. Fact is the people via government can choose to provide something to all people funded by taxpayers if they so choose. There is nothing inherent with what the framers viewed as inalienable rights such that the government was forbidden to provide other protections or benefits by choice. The difference with those rights is that the government is forbidden from taking them away (although technically the Constitution can be amended). If there was legislation for universal healthcare there would be no prohibition from new legislation undoing it.

 

[zinfamous]

Don’t confuse “social justice” with rights. Our rights are in the constitution. We can pass a law to give everyone a pony and raise taxes to pay for it. But it’s not a right to have a pony.

Personally I’m willing to pay for healthcare for children. But it’s not right they have for being born. I’m not willing to pay for the results of adult choices like eating and drinking to excess, reckless behavior etc. if you choose ride a motorcycle without a helmet I shouldn’t have to foot the bill for your cracked skull.

And if you are planning your life so the government is going to take care of you in your old age then you have no one to blame but yourself for what you get.

What you want isn't how insurance works, ever.

You are already paying for all of these terrible behaviors in your insurance premiums. You have always been paying for them. Do you think you haven't? Have you ever complained about it before, in all this time that you have exactly been doing that?

Shouldn't you not have healthcare out of some sort of honest protest? I mean, if you are serious about these so-called convictions.

It seems you are mad that the model would be federal instead of private. It seems that actually doing the same thing more efficiently, and with overall lower costs for everyone makes you angry (all world models of government vs privatized healthcare shows better efficiency, the more you move towards government involvement. It just does).

 

[Muse]

I have to dive into the alphabet soup of medicare in a few years, everything I've seen says to start studying now.

I did that when it was time. It's doable, at least it was when I did it. Medicare sends me a manual type thing every year that I don't read, because I don't figure to change my coverage, but if I did I suppose I'd have to read that manual. That stuff is kind of complex and lengthy. It's like reading a book, a book you want to master. Worth doing, at least to begin with! You want to know why you are making the decisions you make.

 

[BoomerD]

Not according to the US constitution. I'd rather not digress the conversation, though.

Look at all the various amendments...are those "god given?" Did the Jeezus come down from Mount Reagan with them carved into tablets of stone, or were they voted on by the citizenry and elected officials?

EVERYTHING in the US Constitution is given to us by "society" in one way or another...and don't forget...what has been given CAN be repealed. (21st repealed the 18th)

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Look at all the various amendments...are those "god given?" Did the Jeezus come down from Mount Reagan with them carved into tablets of stone, or were they voted on by the citizenry and elected officials?

EVERYTHING in the US Constitution is given to us by "society" in one way or another...and don't forget...what has been given CAN be repealed. (21st repealed the 18th)

Not sure where all the condescension is coming from. Just stating the intent of the document.

It's a limitation of US govt powers by virtue of enumeration of inherent rights, not rights gifted to citizens by a benevolent government. Always has been.

 

[BoomerD]

Not sure where all the condescension is coming from. Just stating the intent of the document.

It's a limitation of US govt powers by virtue of enumeration of inherent rights, not rights gifted to citizens by a benevolent government. Always has been.

Where did those "inherent rights" come from in the first place?

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Not sure where all the condescension is coming from. Just stating the intent of the document.

It's a limitation of US govt powers by virtue of enumeration of inherent rights, not rights gifted to citizens by a benevolent government. Always has been.

I wouldn't say always. Slavery kind of flies in the face of the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, for one.

 

[fskimospy]

That's sounds easy but is not. Well, kind of. Medicare can certainly lower it's reimbursement. There would be significant efficiency increase though in single payer, and some gains with Medicare expansion overall.

To your central point, I absolutely agree that Medicare is not currently broken. It can also be improved. And to the OP I also would like a system which is free to the consumer.

I don't think it's easy at all, if anything it's proven to be incredibly hard. It doesn't change the fact that if you look at the cost of common procedures in the US and in other counties they are way out of line and that will have to be addressed.