How to Save Medicare – A Radical Plan

When seniors learned that Obamacare was to be funded by diverting billions of dollars from Medicare, they knew instinctively that either Obamacare would fail or that Medicare would be destroyed, and they revolted. Right now Congress is getting ready to restore some of the Medicare cuts, diverting funds from Obamacare, and Obamacare is going down the drain even sooner than predicted.

However, Obamacare is only one of the problems facing Medicare, a program that has been doomed from the start; whenever there is unlimited demand for something in short supply, i.e. medical services, costs (prices) go out of sight. Every year Social Security recipients pay more for Medicare, deductibles go up and up, while at the same time, more and more doctors refuse Medicare patients because they can’t afford to treat them.

I’ve been on Medicare for several years now, and I have witnessed what one of the underlying problems is, and it is related to the unlimited demand: when you have supplementary insurance, or you live in a state that outlaws balance-billing, there is usually no cost whatever for Medicare-funded services. Many seniors, therefore, then run to their doctor or to emergency rooms at the slightest sign of a sniffle or arthritic pain, and the system becomes further overwhelmed. Many seniors seem to make a career out of doctor visits and doctor shopping, some with only imaginary ills.

One way to reduce demand on Medicare-funded services is to require some kind of out-of-pocket, cash payment for the service provided. This can be a minimum co-payment, but it cannot be covered by supplementary insurance, or the discipline enforced by the co-payment is lost. In fact, what I am suggesting is that supplementary insurance policies for Medicare be made illegal, and all medical costs not covered by Medicare be billed to and paid-for by the beneficiary of the service.

This is drastic action I know, but drastic action must be taken to save Medicare and convert it to a program that is entirely supported by premiums and by cash payments. We already crossed a huge line when higher income recipients began to be charged higher Medicare premiums than lower income recipients – thus making Medicare a welfare program. Let’s make it self-supporting and also return it to a program where everyone pays the same premiums.

Our country is on its knees largely because of the existence and misuse of entitlement programs and the whole notion of ‘bringing home the bacon’. Social Security and Welfare also need drastic reforms. Lets us as seniors show the way by making some sacrifices for the common good and for our grandchildren.