Medicare saving measures
rockdog
federal
commission that was supposed to come up with some saving measures for
Medicare.
The commission has come up with a plan. It’s a free market plan.
It moves government further out of the picture and private industry in.
It’s very simple, really.
Seniors would chose the medical care option they desired from
among private suppliers. Fee-for-service. Managed care, whatever.
The government would give them the money to pay their premiums.
Actually – "give" is not the proper word.
The government would return the money it had been taking
from the taxpayer for decades.
Well --- this plan is dead.
It is being killed by four members of the federal Medicare commission.
The four members who were appointed by Bill Clinton.
Why is it dead? Easy .....
because Clinton sees the chance to make big political gains
from Medicare reform.
Clinton wants revenge.
His overriding goal now is to put Al Gore into the White House
and the Democrats in control of the congress.
Medicare reform will take a back seat to
his plans for retaliation.
Clinton also owes a great debt of gratitude to the Statist Democratic
clique
that worked so hard to defend him in his impeachment.
Instead of reform, the goal is now expansion.
The strategy is simple.
Propose an expansion of Medicare that will thrill the Statist elite
and will be unpalatable to the Republicans.
Prescriptions --- that’s the way to go.
Include payment for prescriptions in the Medicare program.
Estimates are that this would add another $20 billion a year in
additional costs. And that’s just for starters ---
as soon as prescriptions became an
entitlement more and more would be written.
When people have to pay for prescriptions out of their own pocket
they tend to exercise a bit of restraint. Let the
taxpayers start paying for them and the restraint is gone.
So --- in election year 2000 look for the wonderful, caring,
compassionate, sensitive Democrats, led by Al Gore,
telling Seniors that their prescriptions should be covered
under Medicare. And look for the evil, hateful, mean-spirited,
stingy, just-plain-nasty Republicans to suggest
an overall reform plan that would contain costs,
not increase them, and would give the wizened
citizens a choice in medical plans.
By the way ---
here are some of the other reform options for Medicare that
are being considered by the ruling class:
Raise the eligibility age ---
maybe you'll die before you can begin collecting.
Also --- you won’t be collecting as long.
Lower benefits for the well-to-do. That’s it.
Make Medicare even more of a welfare
program than it already is.
These people paid into the system just like everyone else.
Now, just because they have worked smart,
saved smart and made good decisions,
rob them of their benefits.
From Nealz Nuze at:
http://boortz.com/nealznuz.htm
Herman Rubin
Stan <ive...@utk.edu> wrote:
>In article <36EE8362...@iname.com>, rockdog <pc...@iname.com> wrote:
>> Democratic Louisiana Senator John Breaux, at Clintons request, led a
>> federal
>> commission that was supposed to come up with some saving measures for
>> Medicare.
>> The commission has come up with a plan. Its a free market plan.
>> It moves government further out of the picture and private industry in.
>What a great idea. Medicare's overhead is about 1 percent.
This is the overhead paid from the Medicare budget. Every bit of
paperwork (including maintenance of computer files, etc.) needed
to comply with Medicare should be counted as Medicare overhead.
I even doubt that the direct Medicare overhead is that low. The
overhead involved in disbursing the funds and maintaining the
Medicare files is probably greater. Even if some of the costs
are also for other purposes, the Medicare share needs to be
considered.
The overhead for
>private health insurance is about 14 percent, and its administered by about
>1500 overlapping plans, each with its own set of paperwork.
Now find ONE posting of mine where I advocated private insurance,
except for catastrophes. I suggest we get rid of this also, by the
simple method of removing its tax advantages, and giving people the
money which now goes into insurance to use as they see fit, including
MSAs. For those who come up with some nefarious ideas about these,
all they consist of is untaxed money, put into interest-bearing or
other such funds, which can only be used for medical purposes without
being taxed.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
hru...@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
William Bacon
Rubin) wrote:
>In article <ivester-ya0240800...@newsserver.utcc.utk.edu>,
>Stan <ive...@utk.edu> wrote:
>>In article <36EE8362...@iname.com>, rockdog <pc...@iname.com> wrote:
>
>>> Democratic Louisiana Senator John Breaux, at Clintons request, led a
>>> federal
>>> commission that was supposed to come up with some saving measures for
>>> Medicare.
>
>>> The commission has come up with a plan. Its a free market plan.
>>> It moves government further out of the picture and private industry in.
>
>
>>What a great idea. Medicare's overhead is about 1 percent.
>
>This is the overhead paid from the Medicare budget. Every bit of
>paperwork (including maintenance of computer files, etc.) needed
>to comply with Medicare should be counted as Medicare overhead.
>
>I even doubt that the direct Medicare overhead is that low. The
>overhead involved in disbursing the funds and maintaining the
>Medicare files is probably greater. Even if some of the costs
>are also for other purposes, the Medicare share needs to be
>considered.
Its not that low Herman. As Larry conveniently forgets, I've pointed
out to him the costs that the Limit to Administrative Expenditure in
the HCFA appropriation doesn't include the share of general costs of
government which should accrue to Medicare. It also doesn't cover the
cost of third party financial intermediaries.
Larry Racies
I haven't forgotten.
But you seem to have forgotten that Medicare, Social Security
and Canadian Medicare all have far less administrative costs
than their counterparts in the private sector---even with all
the costs you attribute to them factored in.
Larry Racies
A proud Microsoft-free environment
Larry Torrey
wrote:
And what is this based on?
Larry
* to reply, remove the word NOSPAM from my address *
Larry Racies
Simple arithmetic!
Larry Torrey
wrote:
So you're saying that you have no answer to my question. Predictable.
Juli88
John Beaux is back in LA looking for work. Is the result of the natural end of
the project?
julianne
yeah yeah yeah yeah
Larry Racies
And you're saying you can't do simple arithmatic.
Guess that's predictable, too.