We currently have a single payer program with over 57 million participants. It is called Medicare and I am a participant. The system is a bitch if you are a provider of HC, but for me, it is a breeze. In addition the premiums are means tested (they have access to your tax returns) so that your premiums are based on your income (ability to pay). On top of that, we have a private, supplemental plan that picks up most of the scraps that Medicare does not pay. I cannot say my costs are dirt cheap, but I am well covered. So what is my problem with a government run program?

Let me tell you. We have all heard the charge that Medicare (Medicaid as well) is infested with rampant waste, fraud and abuse; has been since day one and it is getting worse. If you do not believe that you are either a Helen Keller wanabe, or too stupid to be left uncaged.

There was a segment on 60 Minutes this past Sunday evening involving a fellow who is currently serving time for Medicare fraud. He explained how easy it was to set up a storefront to sell pills, appliances, equipment and supplies, buy a list of Medicare/Social Security recipients, get a copy of the billing codes and go to town billing the program for completely bogus and baseless services and products. For those who did not watch the program I think you can view it on their web site. It was truly disgusting to hear how this person and (his estimate) thousands of other fraudsters in FL were bilking Medicare, and ultimately the taxpayers, out of billions of dollars every year.

Medicare recipients write and call about the bogus charges on their account and they get a nice form letter thanking them for brining these issues to their attention. One woman has been fighting this fraud on her account for years and Medicare just keeps paying the charges. A man had the same thing going on. In his case, they billed Medicare for all kinds of things including two arms, etc. This stuff goes on and on, year after year and these morons in DC are completely incapable of stopping it. Do you suppose a private company would or could allow this to go on year after year? They (60 Minutes) talked to the woman in charge of their WF&A investigation unit. She whined about not having enough budget to properly do the job. This stuff has been going on for decades. Congress and the Medicare people know about it but they are completely impotent to do anything about it? Can you spell incompetence (at all levels)? Or, perhaps it's more than incompetence?

Another example that everyone with a TV has seen: The companies want you Medicare folks to call them and “qualify” for a spiffy motorized wheelchair. They guarantee that if you qualify and Medicare will not pay for it, they will give it to you free! How can they do that? Well, you can find those chairs available on the Internet for around $1,200. However, when Uncle Sugar pays for them…over $4,000 a pop.

Now why would any responsible person in their right mind want to expand these programs ten-fold?

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So if everone goes in medicare because you think its great how do you pay for it?

Medicare as we know it today will soon be broke. Its the camels nose under the tent that no -one today is talking about.

You cant possibly bring 20 million more people into a system and expect to SAVE money doing so. Quite the oppisite will happen.

If true....

why just "hold the line"?....why will not ONE ambitious Republican or the leadership call for an ELIMINATION of Medicare, even if "gradual over 20 years".

But now promise to "protect it from Obama's cuts" and "shore it up"?????

Political suicide. GWB had the nuts to improve SS and the left went crazy saying there was nothing wrong with it.

Solutions now imposed ( and i'm a health care provider) are just to simply cut re-imbursement. Well that works for a while but then no profit at all is realized . I survive because of the high volume of patients i care for. The payer mix has about 40%(presently) private insurance. Under a national plan at medicare reimbursement rates i will simply retire a few years earlier than planned. I'm not alone. Sometimes these government fixes create laws of unintended consequences that we find out when its too late.

"Now why would any responsible person in their right mind want to expand these programs ten-fold?"

because the problem isn't government, the problem is scum who abuse the system, like buying off your DC reprensentive who didn't enforce the regulations after taking the bribes from the medical industry. you know, like when Halliburton rips off the government and the right wing maggots claim it's their god given right to do so, and demand government allow Halliburton to rip us off all the more?

or the brain dead moron dittoheads who said how great ENRON was, and to this day justify market manipulation that caused the elderly to die priced out of affordable energy.

No, government isn't the problem here. criminal behavior is. when we start imprisoning crooked politicians taking bribes from Halliburton, enron, and the like, and start prosecuting our laws, we wont find so much fraud in the system.

Are you willing to jail the poor and illegal immigrants that commit fraud also?

Hey, I'm all for jailing politicians and corporate assholes but why stop there.

PS: Rush is a complete and total racist asshole just incase you think I'm a dittohead (since you like to label people and name call 24 \ 7).

GWB was going to improve SS? He had no plan...he had a bumper sticker.

Jeb Bush helped a Cuban immigrant get a pass on medicare rules while dad was president. Recare ran a company that defrauded the government out of millions and then got help in obtaining his tax refund early....he then skipped the country.

That is how it happens. People are connected, otherwise they'd get caught.

middleview:

GWB was going to improve SS? He had no plan...he had a bumper sticker.

Lets say you're 22 yrs. old and Uncle Sam give you the option of putting 7% of your pay check into a tax deffered account with your name on it. At age 67 it will all be yours and if you die before its gone you pass on. What 22 wouldn't jump on that.

GWB wanted to start with a much smaller percentage of one's income. The left had a hissy fit, The liberal AARP got on board and it stopped.

A bumper sticker?

Show me a link to a plan. There wasn't one. There was no way that you could stop collecting payments into SS and still pay out. So how in hell would this work?

I was working for a company that sold software to stock brokers. None of them could figure out how those accounts could possibly be managed. Would the federal government designate a couple of plan administrators (like Lehman)? What stocks would they be allowed to invest in? Anything they wanted?

Face it. It wasn't killed by the left. It died because it wasn't a plan.

GWB wanted to start with a much smaller percentage of one's income.

And what would have happened to that "nest egg" when the market lost half its value last year?

Of course GWB's friends in the brokerage houses would still have collected their fees up front, which was the real reason for the "privatizing" of Social Security.

P.Steve:

You're looking at the short-term impact of market fluxuations. Something like this a long-term proposition and over the long-term the market returns better than any other option available. Sure, there will be losers in the short-run because of the timing of their entry and exit from investments but over the long-haul the vast majority will be much bigger winners than they get from SS.

Remember that back in FDR's day the prevailing life expectancy was 63 and benefits didn't start until 65...tell you something about the smoke and BS of the time?

Social Security succeeded in bringing older Americans out of extreme poverty. And you want to abolish it.

I do not support your attempts to abolish Social Secuirty, even if FoxNews tells you to destroy the program.

So if I don't agree with you and I rely on independent statistical facts for my support, I'm a brainless zombie following Fox, Rush, Glenn, etc.? You'll have to do better than that.

So you currently have SS payments to retirees coming from money that is deducted from paychecks. If you stop making those deductions so you can start this new market fund, who pays current retirees?

If everyone is going to be allowed to put their money into the market, who selects the funds they can put money in? Who manages those funds?

The reason there was no interest in Bush's plan is that he didn't have a plan. He had a bumper sticker.