What if?

[flamin lib]

Why is Medicare such an issue?

Back in the ‘60s the Great Society decided that old people needed to be cared for. Private insurance wouldn’t do it because nobody gets to be 65 years old without some baggage; arthritis, high blood pressure or a plethora of other issues that will cause the last years of life to use up use up 35-50% of your lifetime health care expenditures, 27% in the last year alone. What would insurance companies charge if they knew how much that decade or two would cost them?

In the ‘60s the solution was be to pay a very small 1.45% of your earned income into a fund for all your working life to cover your last few decades of health care costs. It worked okay for awhile but then health care costs far outstripped both inflation and wage growth. To make things worse, upper incomes were shifted to un-earned and untaxed sources and the second worst economic disaster in American history befell us, costing jobs and the 1.45% in contributions each paid.

My family pays 1.45% of our income into Medicare for use later and 25% (ours and the employer’s) into private insurance for current coverage. What if everybody paid a graduated rate, say 2-25% depending on income, and got coverage from Medicare? What if employers passed on their health care savings to their employees to offset the increased taxes? What if interest income and capital gains were also taxed?

What if . . .

[Yavapai]

1. This would never happen, it makes too much sense!

[SheilaT]

2. I'm old enough to recall the debate over

Medicare and how the AMA was adamantly opposed and how otherwise sensible people were convinced that no good could possibly come of Medicare.