Depending on what article you read, Medicare fraud varies from 10% to 25%. Compare that result with private insurance companies. Private Insurance companies experience less than 1% fraud.
Therefore, the best approach would be to maintain the government program as is, but hire insurance companies, not federal government workers, to manage the program as "third party providers". The US military forces already do this for many job activities. Just as with military combat operations, this is not "privatizing" Medicare. It will still be government insurance run by government overseers. Just the administrative workers will be different.
Secondly, roughly half of all Medicare expenses go to people in their last year of life. Many of these recipients are too sick to make medical decisions. So other family members, or government, or medical providers make these decisions for them. The result is often extending the dying process, not the living process, for the benefit of the medical providers.
For example, "have cancer and only have 6 months to live, we need to do quadruple bypass surgery now so you can make it to six months." That benefits the medical providers financially in a very substantial way, but what does it do for the patient except extend his/her suffering?
The solution is for the Medicare recipients at the time they sign up for Medicare, to fill out a medical will that all medical providers have access to and must follow unless the patient changes his/her mind when the time comes. That takes it out of government's hand, out of medical provider's hands, and out of family members hands who may not know the patient's wishes in such a situation and the patient is unable to respond to questions clearly and/or intelligently.
For people already on Medicare, each year they must make new choices for part D prescription programs. At that time, for any who have not submitted a medical will, have them do so. Either fill out a government form or if they have a medical will already, give government a copy.
Getting it Right - Welcome
The goal of this blog is to publish my thoughts on a variety of economic and political topics in the hopes that people who find them educational or beneficial will utilize them and/or forward to others who might find them interesting and/or worthwhile to promote to others, possibly including politicians who can push some of these ideas to fruition. The topics in my blog are meant to be of value on a long term basis, not a daily diary or political issue of the day log. If the information posted is useful to you, by all means utilize it and/or forward it as you see fit. If not useful, then merely ignore it. There are no universally agreed upon truisms and too little tolerance between some of those with opposing viewpoints to successfully convince the people with hardened opinions to move away from them. I am an analytical type person who will try to be as factual as I am able.
I disdain the current popularity of name calling and condemnation of viewpoints with no factual alternatives or logical solutions given that I see so often. If you don't have a solution based on fact and logic, then opt out of the discussion because you have nothing to contribute. My background is a degree in Economics from the University of Michigan and 39 years working in middle management jobs for a major retailer. My opinions are forged on the personal experence of life, family, friends, and work as well as triumphs and mistakes that I have made and hopefully learned from. My hope is that this blog helps you.
My first topic will be about personal finance. I chose that one first because most of us work long and hard just to survive but not all of us realize our dreams of becoming financially independent from the labors of our work. Much of our political votes/thinking also focus on the economy and in particular how well we are personally doing financially.
It is relatively simple, without sacrificing the enjoyment of living for 'today' and even at moderate incomes, to retire as a millionaire or multi-millionaire, if you focus on that goal consistently from a young age. It is also simple to ensure that your child or grandchild retires rich. It merely requires a one time gift of just $2,000 invested wisely and the passage of time. Please read my first post on this blog to learn more.
An index/schedule of past and future posts and their dates will always be updated so that it becomes the first post that you see below. If the date of a post that you wish to read is preceded by the word "Posted", then find it below or click on the title in the Blog archive to review.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment