Medicare for all would be a hilarious concept — if the stakes were not life and death.
“Medicare for all” rests on the premise that Medicare is a popular and successful program. But Medicare is the ONLY health insurance for the elderly. So how could it not be popular? For seniors, it’s Medicare — or nothing. Government made it that way back in 1965. If the alternative is Medicare or no insurance, well of course Medicare is popular.
Is Medicare successful? Only with the existence of a for-profit sector to prop it up. The great majority of people on Medicare are middle class, since the middle class make up the majority. They all have supplemental, for profit private insurance policies to back up their Medicare plans. Either their former employer pays for them as part of a retirement package, or they purchase one through an organization like AARP.
The fools running for President say, “Medicare is great for seniors. So let’s extend it to everyone.” But it’s not Medicare covering seniors. It’s lots of other people and programs. It’s private dollars, too. Without a robust private sector — albeit a heavily regulated one, especially since Obamacare, which drove up costs massively — there would be no Medicare as we know it.
So the fools running for President and the even greater fools who believe them say, “Outlaw private insurance. Outlaw the private practice of medicine. No more profit. The government will manage and pay for everything”. Seriously? The government that can’t even get a war right, most of the time — and defense is, unlike health care, an actual legitimate function of the government specified by the Constitution!
Nobody talks about how Medicare depends on the private sector for its survival. Payroll taxes come from the private sector. They will go up massively once Medicare covers everyone, not just seniors. More than that: Without for-profit insurance and private profits for hospitals and doctors, Medicare wouldn’t be able to function as well as it does. And it can’t function without supplemental private insurance. And, like Social Security, it’s set to go bankrupt eventually, at least without massive spending cuts. If you want to know what cuts look like for medical care, check out the elections in Canada and Great Britain. They have the equivalent of Medicare for all. Politicians make ALL the decisions. It’s ugly.
We need health care reform, for sure. We have to totally wipe out Obamacare. We have to deregulate health insurance, including allowing it to sell across state lines. Seniors and young people should be allowed to opt out of Medicare, and purchase other and better options on a private market, which will open up if the government permits it. Most likely, the private market would restore health insurance to the rational function of “hospitalization” rather than being mandated to cover every single last little service, as our current, highly expensive system does. But that’s up to the private market to decide, meaning: you and me. NOT the government!
And perhaps most important of all: Americans have to adopt a consumer mentality for health care just as they already have adopted for cars, computers, clothing, groceries, restaurants and travel. We have to stop letting bureaucrats and politicians make decisions for us. Right now, the politicians on the left are essentially saying, “Government handles most of health care now. You have to let us handle ALL of it”.
They can’t be serious. But they are. And I shudder for a future where millions of people believe them, and will give the life-and-death power over medicine to people who have never done an honest day of legitimate work in their lives: politicians.
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