Medicare's 44th Anniversary

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Medicare Insolvent In 8 Years

Medicare rates have increased 0% over the last decade - they were 2.9% in 1999 and are 2.9% today. In fact, the rate was the same 2.9% 20 years ago.

Private health insurance cost, on the other hand, has slightly more than doubled over the last decade alone.

Get the picture?

Yeah I get the picture. Medicare has been mismanaged to the point of insolvency. I wouldn't hold it up as an example of what the government can do. It is a failure.

Medicare would be flush with cash if it had milked the American public the way the private insurance does. Or, reversely, if the private insurance industry had shown the same restraint on contributions from the public, it would have gone bust years ago. Talk about mismanagement.

Your right, talk about missmanagement. Without huge increases in premiums Medicare is going bust. And you want the entire nation to suffer with this? Not me!

Gary, you're disregarding the feisty reality once again. Medicare is alive on the same 2.9% rate it collected 20 years ago. The private insurers jacked up their rates by over 100% over the last ten years alone. Tell me that you believe that they would be alive and well today if they hadn't gone for the big grab into your pocket and mine year after year.

Nope, they would be going broke just like medicare is. You are making my point, the government can't run health care as well as private companies can.

Actually, Gary, you just admitted that the government is able to provide services without jacking the contributions up by insane amounts which the private insurance - per your admission - isn't able to do. Let's put them on a level playing field for a second. Scenario 1) the government would have increased the rates by 100%+ over the last decade or - scenario 2) the private insurers would have restrained themselves to virtually no increase in premiums. Under scenario 1) there would be no discussion on the insolvency of Medicare and under scenario 2) there wouldn't be any private insurers left. How that translates into the private companies running this better than the government is not exactly clear to me.