Government should provide Medicare over free market option
Due to the poor way in which this medical reform process has been handled, I have come to believe that Medicare for all is the only "reform" option that should have been presented from the very beginning.
There is no one that I know of, Republican or Democrat, who would give up their Medicare even if we refunded all of the premiums they have contributed over their entire life. You can't buy medical insurance of that quality at that advance age. In general the American people are happy with the low overhead and the basic quality of Medicare services. The plan is something we plan our lives around and those who are not happy with the benefits have the "free market option" to purchase supplementary insurance.
On the other hand, I and my extended family can attest through personal experience at how dysfunctional the for profit medical insurance system has become.
And the best that Democrats offer us is a few reform measures while locking uninsured Americans into a dysfunctional "free" market system. This is not reform, this is not what the middle wants. It's not a central path. This is pandering to a profit driven insurance system from a party that does not have the backbone to stand up to corporate interests.
- Louis S. Daher, Ann Arbor.
Comments
Hot Sam
Sun, Jan 17, 2010 : 1:12 p.m.
""""We only refuse to pay for the less fortunate among us. Mostly women and children!""""" Huh??? Does that mean there is no Medicaid? And children? What about the program known as CHIP, which covers ALL children without insurance...even into some higher brackets???
David Briegel
Sun, Jan 17, 2010 : 12:28 p.m.
Unfortunately for all of us, greed and corruption has become our American Value. Everything is for sale. Those with the money get their way and the rest are left out. Money is free speech which makes bribery legal. How tidy. We continue to pay for the health insurance of everyone insured. We only refuse to pay for the less fortunate among us. Mostly women and children!
lancer
Sun, Jan 17, 2010 : 11:33 a.m.
Mr. Daher believes Medicare for all is the only reform option that should have been presented from the beginning. (Letters to the editor, January 17, 2009) It is as though Mr. Daher heard that a fund run by Bernard Madoff is delivering great results and he is encouraging everyone to invest. The last ones into a Ponzi scheme are the ones who get hurt the most. Doesnt Mr. Daher read like the rest of us that Medicare is broke (more accurately, bankrupt), that the unfunded liabilities are $90 trillion? Even today, Medicare does not cover its costs. Doctors who accept Medicare patients must accept less for their services than they think they are worth so they increase their prices to all others, including to the insurance companies that Mr. Daher so despises. In other words, those insurance companies and the participating doctors are subsidizing Medicare today. And ObamaCare will cut Medicare even further. What would happen if Mr. Dahers wish came true and there were no more insurance companies and everyone had Medicare? And the baby boom generation is about to retire and to start collecting on the promise made to them by people like Mr. Daher. Mr. Madoff is in jail. Who should go to jail for the Medicare Ponzi scheme?