Ahira's Hangar

Working together? An ideal, but the political (persons holding political offices, not the loudmouths at the meetings)opposers to reform packages, want to dismantle the present socialized single payer system in the U.S.: the Medicare system. They were mostly angered when Johnson forced the Medicare system through in 1965 and they've not gotten over. Over the last few weeks and even earlier today, I've heard more than one commentator saying the Medicare system is the cause of why there's a mess today, and another saying it's a marginal system (supposing a system that covers about 12% of the country is a marginal system).

I've heard that medicare is on the verge of bankruptcy though?

--A

It's Social Security that's on the verge of bankruptcy. I don't recall hearing about a funding problem with Medicare.

The problem with Medicare is finding a doctor who will take it, in some areas, as Medicare tends to pay less for certain procedures than the docs want to charge.

That is one thing that absolutely needs to be reformed, by the way, no matter what happens with universal health care - making open and honest pricing available to medical consumers (provided there are no complications, obviously).

One of the local TV stations had a news crew follow around a guy without insurance who needed a colonoscopy. He went to several local hospitals asking what they charged for a colonoscopy (provided he had no complications, of course). The prices varied by up to ten thousand dollars, and some hospitals refused to give him a price at all!

That's terrible on so many levels.

I certainly hope we get some reform...but I fear people are using this as mere political amuunition without regard for improving quality of life.

--A

I'm afraid you're right, Av.

That right there is the biggest problem with American policits right now - some people have become more wedded to their political parties and positions than they do to their own spouses - and forget that real people have to live with the resulting divided mess.

Yeah, it freaks me out how otherwise normal, intelligent people start frothing at the mouth whenever politics gets discussed. Maybe it's because I'm largely apolitical...I don't trust any of them, and so whoever is in charge doesn't matter to me.

--A

To me one of the biggest markers of an irrational mind is believing something even if ample valid testable proof is provided for opposing points of view (ie Flat Earthers and Creationists are downright irrational). Many Americans seem to be tottering on the point of irrationality, if not outright insanity when it comes to politics right now.

The problem is, valid testable proof can't be applied to ideology.

--A

Though it can possibly be brought foreward to say which social programs work and which do not and which produce the best results for the amount of money spent...if you can separate the results from ideological spinning.

I dunno...even the question of whether something is working depends on the weight that is given to diffeent parts of it. something could be considered working by one person because it provides X, but failing by another because it costs Y.

--A

IIRC, the everincreasing costs of health care, new fee schedules for providers and an increasing covered population, are what's the overall threat to the funding viability of Social Security/Medicare system. In the U.S. everyone in a covered business, not all businesses or workers are part of the Social Security system, gets an automatic deduction from their salary equal to about 6.5% or their gross income. The worker's employer matches the amount with equal amount, and that's the amount given to the Social Security system in the employee's name. A certain portion of those payments are designated specifically to fund the Medicaid/Medicare systems. Workers exempt from the automatic deduction and maybe exempt from the system, any designated as an independent contractor and not salaried nor wage earning employee (exempt from automatic deduction but may have to make their payments independently from the automatic system), many types of governmental employees (state and municipality (including teachers in many areas)) are exempt from the system, railroad employees are exempt from the system, some others. Ever since the system's beginning there have been earning caps on the amount contributed; IOW, after the employee earns a particular amount the deduction is no longer made, and over the last twenty five years that amount has been raised to the six figure earning classification.

Sorry this message is so long and sort of boring.