Quick Thought On “Reforming” Medicare
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 3/13/10 @ 5:48 pm - Filed Under National Politics
Every time I see someone talking about Medicare “reform” I get that “ugh” feeling where you want to throw up in your mouth. The reason is because fixing Medicare simply isn’t possible - at least not if you want to keep it as anything that resembles its current form. The entire program has been a sham from day one.
Just think about what the program promises - unlimited medical care at essentially no cost from retirement age until you die. Oh and now we’ll go ahead and throw in prescription drugs as well. It’s asinine. At least social security has a defined benefit and thus you can actually budget for future expenses. Does anyone pretend to know what medical costs and/or life expectancy will be 50 years from now? Of course not. This doesn’t mean that Medicare isn’t a noble cause but if you want to “fix” it then people are going to have pay more - A LOT MORE.
I would bet anything that 99% of the people on Medicare today will have paid in less than they will use. How in the world can anyone think that is sustainable? It’s a pyramid scheme that requires ever larger numbers of people to pay for those using the services. But those contributions aren’t tied to costs so bankruptcy is the only outcome…
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3 Responses to “Quick Thought On “Reforming” Medicare”
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Jeff,
I have been working on a post discussing the viability of Medicare and Social Security for a couple of days; however, your take on Medicare is very refreshing.
The programs are clearly completely unsustainable and need to be radically overhauled.
That being said neither major political Party has the guts to tackle this problem; they just keep kicking it down the road.
Mike
The quick fix for Medicare is an opt-out provision that permits young people to say “Hell no, we won’t go!”
Inside of one generation, Medicare will no longer exist, because the government will be forced to sevice current participants and send the rest packing to find an HSA plan to rely on.
Before you tell me that this thought is asinine because we will have everyone relying on welfare . . . I will point out that welfare by any other name (such as Medicare) is still welfare.
While we are providing Medicare opt-outs, we might write Social Security opt-outs into the same law.
Why would people opt out of a system where they are guaranteed unlimited medical care for essentially no cost to them? I’m sure there are some that would do it based on principle but I doubt that it would be too many.