There are folks screaming about it. The AARP likes it. Some say it gives seniors new benefits; others that it benefits the health industry at the expense of seniors.
As for me, I was against the damn thing to begin with. It's not the government's job to buy my medicine when I get older. The fed is not my parent, and I am not a child. I neither expect nor want them to take care of me, particularly if it means I have to give up some of my freedoms in order to get that care.
And that's the decision you have to make everytime you take gov't assistance. Are you willing to trade your freedoms, your right to choose, in order to have Uncle Sam take care of you? If you are, then don't cry about it.
I'll add this. Nobody getting Medicare today grew up expecting for the gov't to buy them medicine. The possibility wasn't even a blip on the radar in 1940. (Hell, there wasn't even radar back then.) So why do they expect it now?
This new program is going to cost us 400 billion dollars over the next 10 years.
400 billion!
And folks are crying because it's not enough.
Basic math time: 35 million seniors 65 and over (Census data for 2000) divided into 40 billion (400 billion/ 10 years)comes out to $1,140 per senior per year.
That's why this isn't a job for the federal government folks. It's too damn big. Economies of scale only go so far before any savings vanish into bureaucratic redundancy and waste. Red tape is the only thing on the planet that grows faster than kudzu, and it wouldn't surprise me to find that after all expenses, that actual average benefit to seniors falls to $700.
If that.
This isn't just a bad implementation of a good idea, but a bad implementation of a bad idea. There's no way to do it right without bankrupting the nation. Just look at the headlines in today's Knoxville paper for a quick glimpse of the future. Under the moderate projection, TennCare is expected to take up to 36% of the state budget by 2008, sucking up 91% of all revenue increases over the 5 year period. TennCare, as it is now, will bleed the state dry within a few years. And don't even talk about raising taxes. More math indicates that you'd have to almost double current tax collections just to keep pace with the growth in TennCare, while also funding increases in other basic services, while adjusting for inflation. Sure, the folks in Crossville are willing to send in an extra $20 bucks or so for their school, but are you willing to face paying twice the taxes you pay now?
The report goes on to note that the drug benefit is expected to account for over half the growth in the cost of TennCare, which brings us back to the Medicare prescription drug benefit.
It simply cannot work. It's not feasible. But now, we're stuck with it. Expect to have that 400 billion figure grow substantially over the next 10 years, regardless of which party is in office. A dem will only accelerate the inevitable.
I think this Plan is just another payoff and a chance to enrich the Corporate Friends of the Bush family.
I didn't read anything regarding the bribes and threats made by "Republican House Leaders" to Nick Smith(R-Mich).
Gotta run, MJ and Scott Peterson are fleeing in a white Bronco.I don't want to miss that!
I did notice one mistake,"The possibility wasn't even a blip on the radar in 1940. (Hell, there wasn't even radar back then.)" Radar was used by England,Germany,Japan,Italy and USA during the Second World War and existed in 1940.
True enough. The very first radar installation was built in 1936 in england for coastal defense. I was thinking more of aircraft mounted radar, which did did exist in 1940, but only just barely.
I was off by a couple of years. Thanks for clearing that up.
Posted by: rich on December 14, 2003 8:05 PM