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Funny how they've never been able to make Medicare work...
Larry J — (archived)

and yet they want to expand it to a national level for everyone. How many times have we been told we need to "save Medicare?" Sounds like that program, which only applies to about 13% of the population, has a lot of problems. If they can't make that program work, what makes anyone believe they can make a much larger nationalized health care system work?

When Medicare was being enacted back in the 1960s, government forecasts predicted it would cost $9 billion in 1990. The actual cost was over $100 billion, but hey, what's a 1000+% percent overrun when your intentions are good.

My wife is the clinical nurse manager for an out-patient surgery center. We've had several good conversations about the difficulties they have dealing with Medicare patients. When Congress says they've "saved Medicare", they usually mean they've cut the reembursement to health care providers yet again. That's why so many doctors refuse to accept any more Medicare patients - the reembursements usually don't even cover their expenses and they don't want to lose money by accepting more patients.

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