Medicare provided guaranteed equal coverage, something that the private sector could not.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
History suggests that attempts to privatize Medicare by relying on private companies to offer Medicare benefits in rural America simply will not work.
Medicare is a monopoly: a central-planning bureaucracy grafted onto American health care. It exercises a stranglehold on the health care of all Americans over 65, and on the medical practices of almost all physicians. Medicare decides what is legitimate and what is not: which prices may be charged and which services may be rendered.
What I am saying is, all health care has a problem with costs. Medicare is growing slower than the private insurance plans. Why? Because of their efficiency. They don't have to give money to shareholders. Why should be defending shareholders?
When Medicare was first enacted in 1965, it provided coverage for hospitalization, doctor visits and surgeries, but there was no coverage for prescription medications.
Part of the middle class promise is that, after a lifetime of hard work, you'll be able to retire and enjoy the fruits of that labor. Medicare was established to secure that promise.
Americans count on the guaranteed benefits they paid for under Medicare.
It worries me about our unwillingness to really address reforms and modernization in Medicare. This thing was designed 37 years ago. It has not evolved to keep pace with current medical technology.
I believe the most important aspect of Medicare is not the structure of the program but the guarantee to all Americans that they will have high quality health care as they get older.
We shouldn't be undermining Medicare for those who need it most in order to give more tax cuts to those who need them least.
Medicaid is essentially bankrupt, Medicare is essentially bankrupt, why the heck would we give the federal government another entitlement program to manage?