National Socialized Healthcare Based on Medicare? Welcome to Hell

While Medicare is generally  looked upon favorably by your average American,  many liberals have voiced the opinion that Medicare should be the model for a National Single Payer; ie socialized medicine.

 In an earlier post I discussed The Real Cost of Medicare this included the fallacy that government administers Medicare is much cheaper than the private sector when it comes to administering their companies (20% vs 3%). The truth is the Federal government farms out the administration of most of Medicare (referred to Medicare Service Contracts) that are usually not counted in the official Administrative costs; Cigna is a major player in Administering Medicare Cigna Government Services Awarded Medicare Contract... The government "stated" administration costs only cover an annul report  assessing the financial health of the program,  while the private sector service contractors are responsible for processing claims and payments, call center services, clinician enrollment, and fraud investigation. So the truth is the Administration of Medicare are at least the same and probably more than private healthcare companies.Then you have to add to the equation that some where between 10 to 20% of Medicare funds are lost to fraud every year; that's $50 billion to $100 billion.

There is also the issue of the doctor fix; this is a $300 billion Medicare shortfall that the Democrats want hidden.   "In 1997, Congress created a new formula called the Sustainable Growth Rate, or SGR. Using Medicare spending in the 1990s as a baseline, the formula factored in overall economic growth to create the annual Medicare budget. The goal was to control Medicare spending by tethering it to the rest of the economy’s growth. And, for a few years, this worked fine; the equation pretty accurately predicted how much Medicare would cost. But, as health care costs outpaced the economy, it has stopped working, leaving the entitlement with a multi-billion-dollar shortfall." Doctor Fix FAQ.

Total Medicare spending is projected to increase from $523 billion in 2010 to $932 billion by 2020. From 2010 to 2030, Medicare enrollment is projected to increase from 47 million to 79 million, and the ratio of workers to enrollees is expected to decrease from 3.7 to 2.4  Medicare Statistics. 

So when one contemplates a Socialized Healthcare based on Medicare, there would be little chance of a private sector administration (a Socialized Healthcare system would be designed to eliminate the private sector), so expect the IRS will be tasked with the administration, something no government agency has any experience doing. All these issues are the result of some of the basic failures of socialism. First, you can not legislate market factors; the mere existence of a mandate rarely results in cost reductions. Second, the larger government grows the more corrupt it becomes. Medicare is now more corrupt than ever and the corruption is growing the more Medicare expands. The  primarily reason is due to doctors over billing for services as they try  to compensate for cut backs in reimbursement rates; it is estimated that in order for a Medicare doctor today  to make a modest $200,000 gross annually, they would have to see 35-40 patients a day for a year. If we continue in this direction will will experience the same level of healthcare they are experiencing in Britain where doctors  have started seeing patients via SKYPE. As the old saying says, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Welcome to hell

Why The Left Has To Lie Part 2

Here are some more 150 words or so, submissions to the local paper. With the recent debates on the budget, all the left can do is either lie, demagogue or both. The reason is simple, if the left was truthful, no one would follow them. So they deceive the public by hiding their true intent, which is the elevation of an elite to a ruling class; the opposite of what our founders intended and what the Constitution was written protects the people from.

5/4 In the iconic 60’s spy comedy “Get Smart”, Maxwell Smart often ended episodes with “if only he could have used his evil genius for niceness,” which seems to be David Brooks view of Osama Bin Laden in his Op-Ed piece “What Drives History;” it’s a belief system as farcical now as it was then. It is the typical absurdity of the left, always presenting form over function. From Brooks, “Bin Laden was a gentle and soft with a flaccid handshake, yet his soldiers…(said) meeting him was a deeply spiritual experience…(he had an) ability to avoid giving offense and forgive transgressions.” Brooks ends his piece wishing there was a “democratic Bin Laden…with the ability to frame narratives and propel actions- for good not evil.” Interesting that Brooks should frame Bin Laden's strengths this way, as the left always seems to frame their historical failures, not as failed policies, but the same inability to "frame narratives and propel action," by those espousing the left's agenda." So no, we don’t need a tyrant mitigated toward democracy; we need another Thomas Jefferson or James Madison and who showed an unmitigated hatred toward tyranny.

4/20 President Obama is very good at selling himself; that is why he is always in candidate mode. He believes it doesn’t matter what you say or promise as a candidate as long as you get elected; but that doesn’t fend well with the electorate after he was elected; especially as Obama continues to state policies he has no intention on following through with. Of course this is always done for the greater good; here the greater good is redistribution of wealth. When Obama talks about deficit reduction he might as well be talking about the rings around Saturn, as it simply has no place in his reality. The President does not care about world peace, or corporate greed, or fat cat bankers, or foreclosures, or green energy, or deficits or debt; all he cares about is the re-distribution of wealth. When you understand this, all he does suddenly makes sense.

4/12 The progressives seem to be falling all over themselves trying to convince the American citizenry that the Republicans actually following through with their campaign promises is a bad thing. The liberal media is portraying the GOP as regretting its association with the Tea Party, when it was the Tea Party that ushered in the largest number of Republicans in over 60 years. The Democrat demagoguery is based, as always that America needs to abandon its belief in individual liberty and allow government to control ones life through entitlements and the re-distribution of wealth. Democrats promise more than they can ever delivers, decry fiscal responsibility as draconian, and will eventually offer socialism as their end game to solve the problems they brought on themselves. What has become obvious is that President Obama and the Democrats will say or do anything to forward their agenda, without any consideration for the truth; like the scorpion that killed the frog, it is who they are.

4/12 Pollsters continue to manipulate their polling results by either basing the poll on non-reflective demographics and/or asking poll questions in a manner that will result in a requisite result. The purpose seems to be to sustain the slipping support for President Obama and the progressive agenda in general. It is almost laughable to believe that the Republicans are out of step with the rest of the country after the last election. But Democrats cannot accept the wholesale rejection of the President and their policies because it means their belief system based on a total lack of fiscal responsibility, has failed. If one looks at past Republican Presidents, it was not policy that the citizenry rejected, it was fiscal irresponsibility. The American people are begging for a government that is willing to make the hard decisions. It is always political cowardice that leads to political failure, regardless what the liberal press wants us to believe.

4/12 It appears that the Democrats really don’t get it. They seem to be salivating, believing that any party stupid enough to try and reform Medicare will be an easy target for their demagoguery. What they seem to completely forget is this is exactly why the citizenry demonstrated a wholesale rejection of the Democrat juggernaut. The first big lie from the Democrats is the promise of entitlements that simply cannot be sustained. This lasts just long enough for the citizenry to feel entitled and for the Democrats to demagogue anyone that wants fiscal responsibility. This is always based on cuts in entitlements that should be reserved for a minority truly in need, but has been given to everyone, so any cuts in entitlements always effects the truly needy. This needs to change, but can not be accomplished by the Democrats that believes all problems can be solved by an ever increasing government and spending money we do not have.

3/31 The Democrats refused to submit a 2010 budget saying “It isn’t possible to debate and pass a realistic, long-term budget until we’ve considered the bipartisan commission’s deficit-reduction plan.” Well the commission submitted it’s plan and we still have no budget, only a “continuing resolution.” To understand this, a continuing resolution is like the Democrats saying, “We don’t need to budget our expenditures as long as he can keep getting increases on our credit card limit.” The Republicans are saying; no, just like any one else, we have to live within our means. Here the Democrats have scoffed saying the idea of a balanced budget is madness and too extreme to consider. It’s Keynesian economics at it’s best, “As long as you can borrow money you’re not broke.” In 2010 the Democrats had one Constitutional responsibility; pass a budget. They didn’t, so we now have to deal with continuing resolutions. Who’s fault is that?

3/18 Charles Krauthammer has publish two articles trying to explain there are no saved Social Security funds and as of now, Social Security is being paid for with borrowed deficit funds; still there are those that refuse to admit the money is gone. All one has to do is realize that when the government sells a bond, it is borrowing money; in this case from itself. Further the government has no mechanism for saving money; it simply takes in taxpayer money, sells bonds to borrow money and then spends the money. No matter how valuable these bonds appear to be they still need to be paid off by the government; and the government doesn't have the money! The harshest reality is every politician that says the money exists is lying and politically posturing so to criticize anyone that would actually try to fix the problem. This is cowardice and these are the bums we need to throw out.