Cyphire, medicare? efficient? I seriously have a hard time accepting that- it’s been a pretty hot topic for quite a while. I haven’t heard much, if anything positive.
I only “parroted” what I read in the news and other blogs etc, as I said to PC – I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about healthcare programs, I admit I’m not the most well informed.
Heres an excerpt from an interview with David Walker our comptroller (Hey! this is just a sample before I get jumped on with my earlier opinion about his latest talk)
“What would happen in 2040 if nothing changes?
“If nothing changes, the federal government’s not gonna be able to do much more than pay interest on the mounting debt and some entitlement benefits. It won’t have money left for anything else – national defense, homeland security, education, you name it,” Walker warns.
Walker says you could eliminate all waste and fraud and the entire Pentagon budget and the long-range financial problem still wouldn’t go away, in what’s shaping up as an actuarial nightmare.
Part of the problem, Walker acknowledges, is that there won’t be enough wage earners to support the benefits of the baby boomers. “But the real problem, Steve, is health care costs. Our health care problem is much more significant than Social Security,” he says.
Asked what he means by that, Walker tells Kroft, “By that I mean that the Medicare problem is five times greater than the Social Security problem.”
The problem with Medicare, Walker says, is people keep living longer, and medical costs keep rising at twice the rate of inflation. But instead of dealing with the problem, he says, the president and the Congress made things much worse in Dec. 2003, when they expanded the Medicare program to include prescription drug coverage.
“The prescription drug bill was probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s,” Walker argues.
Asked why, Walker says, “Well, because we promise way more than we can afford to keep. Eight trillion dollars added to what was already a 15 to $20 trillion under-funding. We’re not being realistic. We can’t afford the promises we’ve already made, much less to be able, piling on top of ’em.”
With one stroke of the pen, Walker says, the federal government increased existing Medicare obligations nearly 40 percent over the next 75 years. ”
I agree it’s a serious issue. I admitted I am not all over the topic so it is entirely possible that I am talking out my ass but, I don’t think I am that far off base.
I’ve only had first hand experience with emergency rooms three times in the U.S. Once the wait was two and a half hours (at 2 in the morning!) the other times pretty quick response, the staff did a good job. But I know the point you are making.
I do not believe that our health care system is the laughing stock of the world. Don’t construe that statement as meaning there isn’t room for serious improvment. As I said earlier lets reign in the TLA first.
I still equate it to Socialized medicine. Bureaucracy, the governmental version of anarchy.
