Republicans can barely contain their glee. Their long-time dream of killing Medicare is closer to reality than it has ever been -- and they're getting the people on Medicare to help them. It's become quite the scene at town hall events across the country. A bunch of stupid old people stand up and rail against a "socialist, public health care option" and then say they want the government to keep its hands off their Medicare -- the biggest government run health care program in the country. Now, the vast majority of old people aren't stupid. The old people showing up at these town hall events and yelling they want government to keep its hands off their Medicare were stupid long before they were old. We already have taxpayer funded health care in this country. But while all taxpayers pay, not all taxpayers benefit.
Following is an excerpt from an article in the New York Times (
Lieberman Suggests Health Care Reform May Have to Wait):
... But on the same show, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican and a member of the same finance panel, predicted that “tens of millions of people will go into the government plan” against their will. And, he added, the problem with government plans like Medicare is they are not sufficiently financed. Medicare, he said, will go bankrupt within 10 years.
“The costs of the government plan will be astronomical,” he said. “Keep in mind, in Medicare they pay doctors 20 percent less, they pay hospitals 30 percent less. Guess where those costs are transferred? They’re transferred to the people who have private health insurance, and the average private health insurance policy goes up about $1,800 a year just to pay for what the government fails to pay for in their current government plan...”
Why hasn't Medicare been properly financed? Why does it pay doctors and hospitals so little that they restrict the number of "charity" Medicare patients they'll take? There was plenty of money in the Bush administration budget for a massive tax cut for well-off taxpayers. There was plenty of money to invade and occupy Iraq in an attempt to take control of the Iraqi oil fields. There was plenty of money for the bridge to nowhere. And there was plenty of money to bail out Goldman Sachs after they helped trash the American economy. Republicans deliberately reduced Medicare reimbursements so that doctors and hospitals would have to restrict the number of Medicare patients they took, making Medicare patients "charity cases". Then they forced through a huge, unfunded, prescription drug plan that gave a lot of money to pharmacutical companies (largely Republican Party donors), with the added benefit of accelerating Medicare's hoped for bankruptcy -- a definite win-win.
We already have taxpayer funded health care in this country:
- 1.45% of of everything you earn is automatically subtracted from your paycheck and sent to the government to help pay for Medicare. If you make a modest $30,000 a year, you're sending $435 to Medicare.
- Big companies that provide health insurance for their employees get large tax breaks (paid for by you) to do so.
- Our well-paid representatives (President and Congress) don't have to buy expensive private health insurance because you are paying for their excellent public health care.
- Public employees, from the hordes of civil servants who keep government running, to the firefighters who protect your home and business, to the police who protect your life and property, have health care that you pay for.
- A couple of million relatively healthy military retirees, who usually start drawing life-time pensions in their late 30's or early 40's, have excellent taypayer provided health care. Nobody disputes the obvious responsibility of American taxpayers to take care of military personnel injured while defending this country. However, the vast majority of military retirees never saw combat and retired healthy and in the prime of their lives with a modest life-time pension (paid by you). Military retiree health care is actually much more generous than that provided to the young wounded vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Once these wounded young soldiers are quickly discharged from the military, they are dumped into another, underfunded, government health care program called the Veterans Administration.
Yes, we already have taxpayer funded health care in this country. But while all taxpayers pay, not all taxpayers benefit. Almost 50 million U.S. citizens, most of them wage earners who pay into Medicare, do not have health insurance. More from the
New York Times article:
"...But on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Howard B. Dean, former governor of Vermont and former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said a government program would be far cheaper than any private alternatives. Mr. Dean said that only 80 percent of the revenue of private insurance companies goes to medical care while the rest becomes profits for investors in the insurance company and for costs like administration. With Medicare, he said, 96 percent of revenue ends up being spent on actual health care. ..."
That 16% not spent on actual health care can buy a lot of politicians -- politicians who have even more incentive to kill a cost-efficient government program like Medicare.
