Back in 2008 I wrote a piece on Medicare and noted that almost a third of the participants get less than what they paid into the plan. But alas that is the basis of any insurance plan. One should be happy no to have to collect. But the existing Medicare plan makes one contribute from the start of your working life to your last breath, namely you still pay 3.5% of everything you make or even on capital gains. Also you pay a monthly amount which can exceed $6,000 per annum per person. Then you pay for another plan to cover the 20% that Medicare does not pay for and then you pay for the drug plan! So we have typically 50 years paid in before penny one comes out and a continuing payment until you are dead!
But the kicker is that Medicare "negotiates" what they will pay for a service. Thus a physician with massive overhead mandated by the Government gets roughly 28% to at best 40% of the actual costs of service. That works because the others not on Medicare are subsidizing the physician, a little bit.
Now assume we allow everyone on Medicare, the millennials and their ilk. Where does the money come from. There is no fifty year upfront commitment. Also a 65 year olds may live 12 to 16 more years. The millennials may go on forever living with mom and dad. So do we have an equity issue, a social justice issue, just to ring the bell of today's socialists.
Then if all patients pay only 40% of the costs, who picks up the rest? This is less than a half baked scheme. It is a method for achieving financial collapse!
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