Chant with me now: Medicare is NOT the problem (personal favor please read):

[DuaneBidoux]

Saying we must fix Medicare is saying we must fix the blanket covering a rotting corpse.

Medicare is NOT the problem, the corrupt American for profit medical “system” (in quotes because it is not a system, it is anarchy) is the problem.
I lived in France, I got sick in France, and I was treated in France. While it is far from perfect it quickly makes you understand how the profit motive has screwed our system over to the point of literally being a corpse to be discarded.

Taking Medicare away might save government finances from bankruptcy, but it will then just move the bankruptcy to someone else (along with the Grim Reaper).

In most neighborhoods in France there are small, simple, basic offices for GPs. The philosophy: simple and holistic. That is where you go for fevers, colds, injections, and a doctor to tell you whether or not there is a place you need to go because what you have may be more serious. Many basic medicines for which you would have to go to a pharmacy are there (pretty familiar to us except for the simple part (never did see a nice magazine to read, a marble floor, or a coffee machine for patrons).

Now, let me talk about the part that probably makes the biggest difference: they don’t have major laboratories and diagnostic centers every 3 miles trying to make money packed with multimillion dollar equipment. If you really need a Cat Scan or something more serious you may have to drive an hour—there are regional centers. But, unfortunately, if you are driving to one of those places you’d better be crossing your fingers—not because a doctor is sending you for a test in a lab he partially owns, but because this means you probably really need the test.

Another huge thing: all doctors and all clinics, and all hospitals have access to a single nationwide database that has ALL your medical history on file at a finger tip. In those simple corner GPs offices I was talking about there will be one bureaucrat (for data stuff), one nurse, and one doctor. Amazing! Not a team of people collecting money and figuring out how to collect more money. They don’t need teams of data collection, insurance, and hospital bureaucrats—it’s all standardized and digital.

Finally, and this might not sound very pc for a liberal, the medical establishment does make judgment calls: they generally will not perform open heart surgery on a 92 year old man simply because they can. They may well instead vaccinate 25,000 children for that same amount of money because they know that when all those kids are 92 they will have cost society much less and will have lived a much healthier life. (Don’t kid yourself; there is NO system that does not ration). I think this is a value judgment that as a society that many societies may make differently—and we might well make those decisions in a way that France would not--that's a fine debate for me. And so...

chant all together now: Medicare is NOT the problem. Medicare is NOT the problem. Medicare is NOT the problem.
We must not fall into the trap of believing that Medicare is the problem. Medicare is a blanket covering a rotting corpse.

[Safetykitten]

1. Oh, it's a problem, and our party leaders will tell us why soon.

[AtomicKitten]

2. Yet Medicare For All is the solution.

[dkf]

4. Medicare for all and a more discerning use of resources.

[dkf]

3. Yup. It's our health care system that is unsustainable.

Any one who is being told we can go on as is, is being lied to.