The left are screaming for Medicare for everyone. My experience with Medicare and my Medicare Advantage plan so far had been absolutely wonderful. I would not mind it being open to everyone as long as they pay the actual costs. I'd you are my age, you have paid into the program through paycheck withholding for decades.
Want to join? Then pay your share of decades of costs and then the monthly premiums. I suspect this would become a far less attractive idea.
Yes, I have seen many doctors who refuse Medicare, some of whom have told me the government needed to do something. "Do you take Medicare patients?" "No."
I think there's another side that many people don't consider and that is that Medicare pays doctors and hospitals much less than the going rate. Many doctors limit the number of Medicare patients so it can be difficult to find a doctor who will take you - you may or may not like the doctor you find. Also, if doctors are not paid fairly, fewer good candidates will enter the field.
ReplyDeleteAnd... Medicare doesn't pay the full costs of care - providers get screwed by it, especially in some specialties like primary care and psychiatry.
ReplyDeleteI use Mayo Clinic, and they no longer accept Medicare patients into their primary care program. I am in it because I was a patient there before I went onto medical care.
So if everyone went on Medicare, even if the government could afford the same payments it makes now, the medical system would collapse - it would go out of business.