"In this election year, no one is discussing the elephant-in-the-room "

[RedEarth]

This baby isn't Babar

March 17, 2008
In this election year, no one is discussing the elephant-in-the-room problem that is devouring an ever-larger share of the nation's federal budget — Medicare. Medicare spending swallowed $367.5 billion, or 13%, of the federal budget in 2007, and it is expected to grow by 6.5% a year for the foreseeable future.

This year, Medicare spending will exceed the program's inflows, which come from a tax of 1.45% on taxpayer income. And, just 10 years from now, in 2018, the Medicare Trust Fund is expected to run out of money.

The current unfunded Medicare obligation is estimated at $71 trillion.

Despite the looming catastrophe, Congress averts its eyes from the monster gobbling up more and more federal resources, as do the presidential candidates of both parties.

The Medicare program is slipping into the red even before the great bulk of the baby boomers begin to retire. The first baby boomers reach eligibility for Medicare in 2011, and the numbers swell every year thereafter. By 2030, the number of Americans over 65 will grow to 73 million, from 40 million today.

http://www.investmentnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080317/REG/134545815/1003

[xxqqqzme]

1. single payer health coverage should rtake care of that.

[Clear Blue Sky]

4. single payer=wait lists

A single payer system will certainly reduce costs, but via rationing care (wait lists). As not every medical problem is an emergency, this could work, but it needs to be organized and sold in a rational way. Unfortunately the politicians will use the issue for scoring political points, meaning more of the status quo.

[depakid]

9. and America doesn't already haveplenty of de-facto waiting lists?

[happyslug]

10. We are rationing now, it is by price, but it is rationing.

In economics, we "ration" things by price, at some point you decide something is to high and stop buying it (Or you have no money ot pay the higher price and thus rationed out of it).

I bring this up for every time I hear the Single Payer health system will "ration" medical service by restricting how often the single payer heath program will pay for a service, I point out we are rationing service now to those people who can not afford health insurance or medical care. The issue do we want a Political appointee (Who fears include pubic humiliation if he or she refuses a request for services) or the unfeeling hand of the market place to do the rationing? When it comes to medical care I prefer a bureaucrat for the simple reason he or she has to respond to political pressure from both politicians who want to be re-elected AND seeing they name in the news as a heartless denial of services. Neither the Politicians nor the news will affect someone who is denied medical care do to price, but a denial by a bureaucrat can be reversed by political pressure.

[leftofthedial]

14. what a load of crap

first, it's not true.

second, we have no waiting lists because 50 fucking million of us have no coverage at all! and because the fucking scam insurance companies refuse to cover the shit you think you'll be on a waiting list for if we ever did get a civilized health care system in this toilet of a country.

[knitter4democracy]

15. Talk to some doctors. There's already rationing.

Hubby's an internist, and he fights every day to get insurance companies to pay for the care his patients need. Talk to the women who only get one mammogram for the rest of their life with their insurance and pray that they can afford the screening to catch breast cancer early enough.

Hubby trained in residency with a couple from Canada. They'd come here to do residency, pretty much planning to go back as hospitalists in Canada, but they also wanted to see American health care for themselves and possibly stay here. They ran back, and this is in Michigan where the two hospitals in town don't turf people who can't pay. They were horrified by what they saw on a daily basis--far worse than anything they'd seen in med school in Canada.

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. Cancel one war and we're OK

:P

[Art_from_Ark]

11. Yeah, really

Stop siphoning countless billions into the Iraq vortex and there will be plenty of money available for Medicare and other services.

[lonestarnot]

13. Take back the richie tax cuts and we will be doubly ok.

[cbayer]

3. Yep, and we better address this

because expanding it (universal health care) has zero chance of success if it looks anything like the current government run health care system.

[maxsolomon]

5. one of several elephants in the room

and no one's discussing those either.

for instance: 2 trillion dollars in war cost (so far) on a credit card held by the chinese.

we're about to fall off a cliff. 2018? the distant future.

[MADem]

6. Yeah, kill off those old geezers....! Where's Kevorkian?

No, wait...maybe we should practice essential prevention care, not give them unneeded operations, or designer drugs that cost the earth and don't fucking work, not charge absurd fees for things like walkers and other assisted living devices, make heath care affordable, and stop padding the costs of the system.

We could probably cut a third of the costs AND provide better coverage with a bit of oversight and a crackdown on fraud.

[Astrad]

7. When I saw the 'elephant in the room'

For a nanosecond I dared to think they were talking about military spending...oh foolish me...

[Joanne98]

8. That's because the "private" companies are sucking it dry!

[knitter4democracy]

16. Absolutely!!

That latest Medicare plan thing is a huge boondoggle.

[TransitJohn]

12. Those percentages are way off.

If you **could** count all the military "off-budget" budget, I bet Medicare would be around 2 or 3%.