Replies

Why single out Medicare?

The US Government had done the EXACT same thing with Social Security. Neither program has ever been run the way the average Joe thought it was.

Both are prime examples of why EVERYTHING except national defense needs to be privatized and taken completely out of the government’s hands.

Didn't raiding Social Security and Medicare count as deficit spending? What a government!

There's another factor. Medicare was only meant to cover hospital emergencies, the kind of emergencies that destroyed Seniors financially. Now Medicare has the options of Parts B and D, which most seniors get. The programs lose money.

I only get Part A. It's what I paid for most of my working years. I really resent lack of responsibility and an abundance of other things being covered threatening the Medicare program as it was designed.

RE :”Soon after Medicare started, the government was collecting billions. Congress saw a great opportunity and took it. They broke open all those lockboxes, took the cash, put it in the General Account, and replaced your money with government-issued I.O.U.s. The government is good for it, right? Anyway, what’s the difference?
There are two huge differences. First, hard cash can be invested and grow: I.O.U.s cannot and do not. Second, your Medicare savings were supposed to be spent on your personal medical expenses. In the General Account, Congress could spend that money on any pork project, for political payback, or whatever crony capitalism scheme they liked. In short, the money Medicare needs to pay for your care isn’t there, by Congressional action.”

I have found that most people here, especially young adults (most voted for Obama), even know how medicare is funded by the phony trust fund, and they don't seem to care either.

The whole flaw in thinking, and it applies to SS too, is that the Federal Government can save and invest $$$ that it collected from taxes, for later use.

The Federal government doesn't work that way, and its not going to either.

Of course it spent it while calling it investment.

In 1965, Medicare started as a medical savings program for retirees. The government would take a small amount out of your paycheck each month for forty years. This would be placed in a virtual lockbox with your name on it, and would grow at some nominal but safe rate, say three percent. At retirement, the average American would have well over $100,000 in today’s dollars in a virtual individual Health Savings Account to cover old age medical costs.

I stopped reading right there. If the authors understanding of the FACTS how Medicare works is this fundamentally flawed, I have no reason to read anything further that he has to say.