In today's NY Times there were two op-ed pieces on Medicare. One from their erstwhile conservative voice and one from an author of a book.
Let me start by stating two facts:
1. Medicare is an entitlement because the people entitled to it paid for it. As we have demonstrated several times, the average worker in the US puts 65% more into Medicare than they will ever get out! Where does the money go, well Congress takes it and spends it. Medicare funding is NOT the problem, Congress is! On average a Medicare beneficiary lives 12 years and costs $12,000 per year. Then they die! So all of you young folks who cannot deal with facts get over your complaining about grandma! Yet as Douthat states:
Let me start by stating two facts:
1. Medicare is an entitlement because the people entitled to it paid for it. As we have demonstrated several times, the average worker in the US puts 65% more into Medicare than they will ever get out! Where does the money go, well Congress takes it and spends it. Medicare funding is NOT the problem, Congress is! On average a Medicare beneficiary lives 12 years and costs $12,000 per year. Then they die! So all of you young folks who cannot deal with facts get over your complaining about grandma! Yet as Douthat states:
"In this future, somebody will need to stand for the principle that Medicare can’t pay every bill and bless every procedure. Somebody will need to defend the younger generation’s promise (and its pocketbooks). Somebody will need to say “no” to retirees...That’s supposed to be the Republicans’ job. They should stick to doing it."
I guess Douthat wants to Republicans then to Kill Grandma! Well Mr. Douthat, the Medicare recipient just wants some portion of their contribution back! One could argue looking at Mr. Douthat that his BMI being a bit over the mandatory 25.0 should himself be paying those of us who are not there for the care he will require for his aberrant lifestyle. That old saying of people in "glass houses" and their "stones".
On the left side of the Times spectrum, well more likely in their center, a Mr. Dooling states:
"With so much evidence of wasteful and even harmful treatment, shouldn’t we instantly cut some of the money spent on exorbitant intensive-care medicine for dying, elderly people and redirect it to pediatricians and obstetricians offering preventive care for children and mothers? Sadly, we are very far from this goal. A cynic would argue that this can’t happen because children can’t vote (even if their parents can), whereas members of AARP and the American Medical Association not only vote but can also hire lobbyists to keep the money flowing."
Again, excuse me Mr. Dooling it is not your money but it was the money of the patient getting the care. I agree with the principles of advance directives and I have seen all too frequently the death of a loved one from a debilitating disease, cancer, and the like, and one recognizes that reasonable care is required. You cannot "save" a person with multiple brain mets from a malignant melanoma, or a colon cancer patient with massive ascites from the met to the liver or a prostate patient with hundreds of bone mets. You can hopefully minimize their pain. The question is what basis does Dooling have for the massive amount of "exorbitant intensive care". As I look at the data and examine the processes the evidence for such explosive costs of the elderly are not there.
2. The Dominant Costs in Health care are from Lifestyle Disease States
As Mackey from Whole Foods stated:
"Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending —heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices."
Also Leonhardt states:
"The promise of that system is undeniably alluring: whatever your ailment, a pill or a procedure will fix it. Yet the promise hasn’t been kept. For all the miracles that modern medicine really does perform, it is not the primary determinant of most people’s health. J. Michael McGinnis, a senior scholar at the Institute of Medicine, has estimated that only 10 percent of early deaths are the result of substandard medical care. About 20 percent stem from social and physical environments, and 30 percent from genetics. The biggest contributor, at 40 percent, is behavior."
In the analysis of my recent Book I clearly make this point using data and projecting forward. The problem is not the old folks who have contributed to their Medicare twofold but the young fat folks who will have lifestyle disease well ahead of any 70 year old who has at best 7 more years of life.
The Press, on both left and right, seem to be at war with the old folks, their parents, those in Medicare. This is not going to end well.
On the left side of the Times spectrum, well more likely in their center, a Mr. Dooling states:
"With so much evidence of wasteful and even harmful treatment, shouldn’t we instantly cut some of the money spent on exorbitant intensive-care medicine for dying, elderly people and redirect it to pediatricians and obstetricians offering preventive care for children and mothers? Sadly, we are very far from this goal. A cynic would argue that this can’t happen because children can’t vote (even if their parents can), whereas members of AARP and the American Medical Association not only vote but can also hire lobbyists to keep the money flowing."
Again, excuse me Mr. Dooling it is not your money but it was the money of the patient getting the care. I agree with the principles of advance directives and I have seen all too frequently the death of a loved one from a debilitating disease, cancer, and the like, and one recognizes that reasonable care is required. You cannot "save" a person with multiple brain mets from a malignant melanoma, or a colon cancer patient with massive ascites from the met to the liver or a prostate patient with hundreds of bone mets. You can hopefully minimize their pain. The question is what basis does Dooling have for the massive amount of "exorbitant intensive care". As I look at the data and examine the processes the evidence for such explosive costs of the elderly are not there.
2. The Dominant Costs in Health care are from Lifestyle Disease States
As Mackey from Whole Foods stated:
"Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending —heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices."
Also Leonhardt states:
"The promise of that system is undeniably alluring: whatever your ailment, a pill or a procedure will fix it. Yet the promise hasn’t been kept. For all the miracles that modern medicine really does perform, it is not the primary determinant of most people’s health. J. Michael McGinnis, a senior scholar at the Institute of Medicine, has estimated that only 10 percent of early deaths are the result of substandard medical care. About 20 percent stem from social and physical environments, and 30 percent from genetics. The biggest contributor, at 40 percent, is behavior."
In the analysis of my recent Book I clearly make this point using data and projecting forward. The problem is not the old folks who have contributed to their Medicare twofold but the young fat folks who will have lifestyle disease well ahead of any 70 year old who has at best 7 more years of life.
The Press, on both left and right, seem to be at war with the old folks, their parents, those in Medicare. This is not going to end well.
Posts
