The Democrats could, as a response to the current Republican "Destroy Medicare" Ryan budget, immediately make everyone eligible for Medicare, not just people over 65. This could probably be done as a "reconciliation" of the existing Medicare legislation in the Democrat controlled Senate to avoid the certain Republican filibuster in the Senate and the Tea Party controlled House of Representatives.
There would be an immediate administrative saving since Medicare only spends approximately 2-3% on administrative costs versus the 20-25% that private heath care companies spend. Second, Medicare currently determines from the advice of knowledgeable medical people the true cost of medical services and only pays that amount. One might argue that private insurance companies would pay the difference for those with secondary insurance policies, as is currently the case, and this would prevent any downward pressure on costs. However, this would also limit extended medical services to those wealthy enough to afford a secondary insurance policy. The number of people covered is uncertain, but I would estimate it will be no more than 10%. Since everyone else would only be covered by Medicare, this would put an enormous popular pressure on lowering medical costs to those provided by Medicare, including both procedures, the use of expensive medical devices such as imaging and the currently exorbitant charges of medical doctors, especially of medical specialists.
And of course, the way to completely eliminate this pressure value that would continue driving up costs would be to ban all private "for profit" insurance companies from insuring health care at all. I feel strongly that health care is a right of every citizen, not a privilege, and should not be a profit-making business. I wager that the overall cost of medical services would very rapidly decrease dramatically to realistic values.
Of course there must also also be a way to increase Medicare revenues. One easy way to do this would be to simply remove or extend upwards the salary limitations for the FICA (Social Security) taxes (currently 7.65% of salaries up to $106,800) that support the federal system of old age, survivors and disability. Hospital insurance is separately funded by a Medicare tax of 1.45% of the entire salary from the individual. I have read that a moderate increase in salary cap would more than cover the increased Medicare costs of everyone under 65.
Medicare is probably the most popular federal program ever created in this country, as evidenced by recent polls that show more than 80% of the American people want to keep Medicare as it is and not to change it into the voucher system proposed in the Republican bill. And extension of Medicare benefits to everyone will certainly prove to be even more popular than the current over-65 system. Another aspect would be that businesses would no longer be required to pay for health care insurance of their employees. Not only would this certainly be very popular in the business community but also would stimulate the economy by decreasing the cost of doing business and probably increase jobs.
So there you have it. The rest is silence.
There would be an immediate administrative saving since Medicare only spends approximately 2-3% on administrative costs versus the 20-25% that private heath care companies spend. Second, Medicare currently determines from the advice of knowledgeable medical people the true cost of medical services and only pays that amount. One might argue that private insurance companies would pay the difference for those with secondary insurance policies, as is currently the case, and this would prevent any downward pressure on costs. However, this would also limit extended medical services to those wealthy enough to afford a secondary insurance policy. The number of people covered is uncertain, but I would estimate it will be no more than 10%. Since everyone else would only be covered by Medicare, this would put an enormous popular pressure on lowering medical costs to those provided by Medicare, including both procedures, the use of expensive medical devices such as imaging and the currently exorbitant charges of medical doctors, especially of medical specialists.
And of course, the way to completely eliminate this pressure value that would continue driving up costs would be to ban all private "for profit" insurance companies from insuring health care at all. I feel strongly that health care is a right of every citizen, not a privilege, and should not be a profit-making business. I wager that the overall cost of medical services would very rapidly decrease dramatically to realistic values.
Of course there must also also be a way to increase Medicare revenues. One easy way to do this would be to simply remove or extend upwards the salary limitations for the FICA (Social Security) taxes (currently 7.65% of salaries up to $106,800) that support the federal system of old age, survivors and disability. Hospital insurance is separately funded by a Medicare tax of 1.45% of the entire salary from the individual. I have read that a moderate increase in salary cap would more than cover the increased Medicare costs of everyone under 65.
Medicare is probably the most popular federal program ever created in this country, as evidenced by recent polls that show more than 80% of the American people want to keep Medicare as it is and not to change it into the voucher system proposed in the Republican bill. And extension of Medicare benefits to everyone will certainly prove to be even more popular than the current over-65 system. Another aspect would be that businesses would no longer be required to pay for health care insurance of their employees. Not only would this certainly be very popular in the business community but also would stimulate the economy by decreasing the cost of doing business and probably increase jobs.
So there you have it. The rest is silence.
