you know how to save Medicare? its really really easy

[LSK]

Let EVERYONE buy into it, not just the part of the population most likely to use it, but also the part of the population who will not use it very much for many years.

Maybe I'm waaayyyyyy off base here, but I would guess that 20 and 30 year olds use a hell of lot less healthcare and cost a whole hell of a lot less than seniors, so WHY WOULD YOU DENY THEIR PREMIUMS????

This is not fucking rocket science.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[county worker]

1. If you work and have withholding taken out of your paycheck you buy into it.

[LSK]

3. I "used to" work and I also had 100/month taken out for health insurance

I am sure I had it good too at 100/month. Now what if millions of people had that money going to medicare? People in their 20s and 30s who do not have many health problems???

[lsewpershad]

6. Is it automatic?

If it's not, it should be. I paid private insurance since I started working almost 50 years ago now that I really need it the co finds umteen differ reasons why it should not pay my health care costs. Congress and our Prez should be aware of this.

[county worker]

7. It is taken out along with social security. Look at your pay stub.

[LSK]

9. yes mine was 18/week

I would gladly pay 50/week and then cancel the 100/week that went to the private insurance company and who knows how much my company was paying to the insurance company in addition to that. Maybe I would still have a job in that case.

[lsewpershad]

14. One more thing

While I was young and healthy the compamy I worked for changed insurance regularly to cut cost. Premiums varied very little. When I was ready to retire, got older and now a little sicker the new company ...need I tell you more?

[Booster]

2. I'm retired and retirees pay a monthly premium which is taken

out of their soc sec check, which I have no problem with. If everyone could pay what I pay, no one would complain.

[lamp_shade]

4. I don't understand. Anybody who works pays into medicare. What am I missing here.

[LSK]

8. people talking about a public health plan would have you buy into it n/t

[ejpoeta]

5. i agree!! medicare AND medicaid would be solvent if everyone was init.

instead of different systems, everyone is in A system and pays into that ONE system. but we have a very powerful and money laden group that would not like that and will fight it tooth and nail. you know who they are. they're the ones that were standing behind obama the other day grinning from ear to ear. they know that THEY will get what they want and we'll get screwed.

[Robbien]

10. Medicare would be solvent if it didn't have to pay a non-negotiated price for drugs

The drug program is a huge subsidy to BigPharma and a big part of the total Medicare bill. It is a huge drain on Medicare since we have to pay BigPharma whatever price they say. Drug prices have doubled, trebled and quadrupled under the new drug program. Why shouldn't BigPharma goose up its prices, Medicare is required by law to pay whatever BigPharma wants.

[LSK]

11. yes thats a big part of it, thanks to Tom Delay

:grr:

[stopbush]

12. Simple. The Feds need to pay back all the money they borrowed from Meidcare over

the years and it will be solvent forever:

"The trust funds — which exist in paper form in a filing cabinet in Parkersburg, W.Va. — are bonds that are backed by the government's "full faith and credit" but not by any actual assets. That money has been spent over the years to fund other parts of government. To redeem the trust fund bonds, the government would have to borrow in public debt markets or raise taxes." (Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090512/ap_on_bi_ge/us_social_security )

So, do you get it? The government has treated Social Security, Medicare and Medicade as a huge, inexhaustible slush fund for decades. The Feds take money out of OUR PAY CHECKS to fund these programs. They then "borrow" the money from the programs to fund their bridges to nowhere and leave a worthless paper IOU in the account, backed by the fed government. Now that the people WHO PUT THE MONEY INTO THE PROGRAMS (ie: We the People) need the money to do WHAT IT WAS PUT THERE TO DO, we're told that the money is gone, and the program will be insolvent in a few years.

The solution: government needs to pay back the bonds, but to do that, they'd need to raise taxes on the wealthy and the corporations who raided the programs to build their pet projects over the years.

The "crisis" in Medicare is not a crisis at all IF the Feds pay back the money they borrowed. Telling all of us who put our money in that bank to fuck off because the trustees of the bank spent it to line their pockets is not acceptable.

[LSK]

13. yes, Al Gore was going to stop that practice and he was ridiculed

:grr:

[Samantha]

15. The practice was actually stopped the last two years of

Clinton-Gore, because of the projected surpluses in the economy, and because they felt it was simply the right thing to do.

Sam