As a senior on Medicare, let me tell you: It isn't perfect. It takes the equivalent of a PhD in law to read and understand the 1900+ pages of Medicare statutes. Every provider of supplemental insurance wants to send me their version of Medicare basics, but they aren't all working from the same document, because their basics vary. The 1966 bill has gotten longer and more complicated every year, and its reach has grown as well. Can you imagine what it would like if it covered everyone?
Today Medicare covers more than 58 million people, spending more than $672.1 billion in payments, which is roughly one-fifth of the total amount of all money spent nationally on healthcare. It runs with bureaucratic mediocrity and at the same pace as any monolith trying to administer endless regulations. The suggestion that all healthcare fall under the purview of the federal government as a part of Medicare is ludicrous. Since when has the federal government been able to rein in spending on anything?
The continued notion, even after the debacle of Obamacare, that a bloated government can responsibly administer health care for all leaves me scratching my head. Seriously? We need solutions, obviously. But yielding control to an entity than can't even resolve its own squabbles and police its own members' corruption is like letting the fox run the chicken coop. Let's not go there.
Rather than offering us the easy sound bites of campaign promises, offer us reasonable solutions:
Develop a pilot program in a single state. Experiment and see if it works.
Allow individuals to buy insurance across state lines.
Reduce dependence on expensive hospitalizations.
Allocate administration to the states.
Establish employer-funded health care accounts and let individuals choose freely from all options.
Make all the options available to everyone at the same negotiated price large corporations receive.
It is hard for me to believe that the same country who put men on the moon can't distill healthcare into a workable format. Have we gotten dumber over time? Is it truly more complicated than rocket science? Warren wants Medicare for all, and I'm wondering if she's tried living on Medicare herself? Perhaps she needs a year in a senior's shoes before making such rash political promises. I just don't believe Warren's bigger government is the solution.
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