MaggieD
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 9, 2010
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How much does a standard single two-day visit to the hospital cost? If you are (say) 86 which means that you average 12-20 days a year, you aren't really buying health insurance - you are pre-paying for your costs, and receiving a huge subsidy when you do so.
You're confusing me with this data . . . unsourced, I might add. This has nothing to do with whether or not a Medicare model would work. The model would work. It's the taxes collected for it that would have to change.
That is sadly incorrect - as we expand the third-party-payment model, what we see is less price sensitivity, not more. What induces doctors to treat old people less is simply that Medicare/Medicaid will not reimburse them as well for taking care of the old or the poor.
As we shine a bright light on the cost of treatment and the cost of insurance to cover said treatment, as we increase premiums to accurately reflect projected losses, people will suddenly become outraged that their doctor is charging them $130 for 10 minutes of his time. As their deductibles rise, they will question themselves before running to the ER and wonder whether or not they really need that CT scan for a broken arm. When more money is coming out of their pockets, costs will go down.
Unfunded Liability for Medicare at current runs in the $60 Trillion range. There isn't a way to pay that by bumping up premiums a couple hundred dollars, and there sure isn't a way to do so if we are expanding it to pay for three to four times as many people.
Medicare's "unfunded liability" is $24 trillion. Social Security $21 trillion. (Based on 2010 numbers) PolitiFact Florida | Romney says debt plus unfunded liabilities equals $520,000 per household
These numbers are misleading because they make the assumption that everything will remain exactly as it is -- expenditures, benefits and premiums. That's not going to happen.
People making $100,000+ in retirement should be paying a great deal more for their Medicare insurance. Not just a few hundred dollars . . . the correct actuarial amount to cover their care. There needs to be a progressive premium that depends upon their income...pension benefits...investment...everything. Perhaps even taking assets into account.
We're so screwed up it's pathetic. I personally know two people who are milking a system that allows them to do so. One has over $1 million in assets and is on Medicare's Advantage Plan. He pays $104 a month -- and no more. That's ridiculous. Another who has over a half-million dollars in assets who gets his medication without having to buy Part D for $5 a prescription through a subsidized plan. He pays nothing for the plan itself. Both of these examples are ridiculous. The system needs drastic repair; but the MODEL itself works.