Health Care: Congress must extend Medicare to cover all citizens
ByMarch 27, 2009
Although Medicare has problems as a coverage, it is good and viable enough that the government should extend it to cover all Americans. In fact, there are more problems in the current private health care system than in the Medicare program, of which most problem issues pertain to the private industry that is covering the elderly under the Medicare program.
In the U.S. private health care is not working. It is estimated that 37 cents of every dollar goes to health care providers for cost and revenue purposes. Such a ratio implies a huge cost that is diverted by providers onto their health care customers. Private health care in the U.S. is NOT cost-effective and it is unaffordable for most citizens.
In addition, health care providers are permitted under the current laws to pick and choose healthier Americans as their clients and discard those it deems unhealthy, ill and who have pre-existing conditions. It is not surprising that such a system does not and can not cover all Americans adequately.
Medicare already covers elderly and disabled Americans. It would take a small action by Congress to extend Medicare to all Americans and it should opt do this ASAP.
.
12 Responses to Health Care: Congress must extend Medicare to cover all citizens
dtotire
March 28, 2009 at 12:11 pm
DanT
This is a good suggestion, however, to fund such a program, we should enact a consumption tax. We cannot expect businesses and the wealthy to fund it completely. I would suggest an 8% value-added tax, which I believe would be acceptable to most people. Requiring business to provide health insurance to their employees would make them reluctant to hire additional employees, and makes them less competive with foreign businesses. Also, the very wealthy would resent having to pay to provide health insurance for everyone.
I can list several advantages to a value-added tax, in addition to lowering the deficit. These include:
1. It would reduce the deficit by about $400 billion annually, or more than $10 trillion annually.
2. It would make businesses more competitive with foreign businesses,since they would not be required to provide their employees with health insurance, and the tax would be added to all foreign imports, excepting food. The tax is rebated on exports.
3. It would also benefit state and local governments, since they would also not be required to provide health insurance, except for the needy.
4. More employment would result.
Some may argue that the tax is regressive. this could be alleviated by increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other means. The tax is not imposed on food or Rent, or used items. For a family making less than $30,000 annually, they would probably pay no more than $1000 a year. Value-Added Taxes are used in more than 60 other countries. In the European Community, the rates are from the required low of 15% to 25%. The rate is China is 17%. Everything we export to them is taxed at 17%, and they rebate the tax on items they export.
Your comments are appreciated.
Dan
dtotire
March 28, 2009 at 12:22 pm
DanT
That should be $10 trillion in 10 years.
almandine
March 28, 2009 at 2:56 pm
$400B X 10 = $10T???
Collectivism is slavery…
hsr0601
March 28, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I guess the best part of competition between the public and private insurance will be that it can bring down the excessive costs and raise the quality of service to survive particularly in private sector , therefore there is no need to worry about the expensive medical costs over time, as EUROPE tells it.
Thank You !
dtotire
March 28, 2009 at 5:17 pm
DanT
Didn’t check the figures. However, the economy will grow in 10 years, so the final figure after 10 years should be a total of around $6-$7 trillion.
However, I am not a big fan of extending Medicare to all. I think that a more acceptable solution would be to enroll everyone in the existing plan for Congressmen, and all Federal employees and retirees.
In the Federal plan, enrollees have a choice of many plans, can choose from a fee-for service or an HMO. The insurance providers are regulated, and must enroll everyone who applies. They also differ in co-pays and additional premiums. The information on these plans is on the internet.
jclarke
April 1, 2009 at 12:49 am
Here is another source for current Medicare Part A information.
Svejk
March 29, 2009 at 5:06 pm
John Conyers’ House Resolution 676 sets out an excellent system of extending Medicare to all and improving Medicare to cover vision and dental care. Copays, pre-existing conditions and for-profit health insurers would be eliminated.
This would be paid for by an increase in the existing Medicare payroll tax to about 3% for exployees and a little over 4% for the employers’ contribution. The savings garnered from eliminating the insurance bureaucracies are huge – near four hundred billion dollars (which would pay for a lot of medical care).
Administrative overhead for Medicare is about 3%, while administration costs in the private sector are about 30+%.
Also note, in a recent meeting we had about health care in our district in Indiana, our Congressman mentioned that he was on his wife’s policy (a public school teacher) because it was better than the coverage offered to Congress.
There’s more to be explained, but anyone interested should google H.R. 676 and read either the summary of the bill, or the whole thing. PNHP.org also provides good information. There will doubtless be changes made as things progress, but it is the only health care program proposed that represents a real change. All the other systems being seriously considered so far have been tried on the state level and have failed, or as in the case of Massachusetts, are failing.
To include the for-profit insurers at this point would be tantamount to bailing them out, too, which we can ill afford. They’re in trouble with a plummeting client base and are eager for a mandate.
gazelle1929
March 29, 2009 at 5:58 pm
>Administrative overhead for Medicare is about 3%, while administration costs in the private sector are about 30+%.
Where did you find this data?
almandine
March 29, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Medicare at 2% overhead?
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/CAHI_Medicare_Admin_Final_Publication.p
Collectivism is slavery…
gazelle1929
March 29, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Thanks. I didn’t think the 3 percent versus 30 plus percent could possibly be right. I had to wiggle a bit to get to your URL:
http://www.cahi.org/cahi_contents/resources/pdf/CAHI_Medicare_Admin_Final_Publication.pdf
The df at the end was missing in action. I’ve reposted it and it should prove a clickable link. I need to spend some time studying this article. Interesting so far.
sammy
July 16, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Dant its a superb suggestion. Increasing Medicare budget will certainly ease many of our problems. Medicines will be of lower price and the Government can set up various dual diagnosis centers where patients could be treated. This will be a really good step if its implemented.
jkg
July 23, 2009 at 8:40 am
new york cardiologists