From: hrubin@skew.stat.purdue.edu   
      
   On 2014-01-04, conklin  wrote:   
      
   > "Herman Rubin"  wrote in message   
   > news:slrnlce5fh.b9f.hrubin@skew.stat.purdue.edu...   
   >> On 2014-01-03, conklin  wrote:   
   >>> Our universal single-payer health-care plan for older Americans,   
   >>> Medicare,   
   >>> has lower costs and lower overhead than the system serving those under   
   >>> age   
   >>> 65. If everyone in the U.S. was on Medicare, the savings would move the   
   >>> federal budget from deficit to surplus.   
      
   >> Medicare is largely welfare based, and those seniors who are on   
   >> Medicare, which is essentially forced unless one is on a private   
   >> plan which is considered adequate, and can afford it have what   
   >> are called supplemental plans, but which are neither cheap nor   
   >> that unused.  Also, while there is not that much government   
   >> overhead, there is quite a bit of overhead at the sites of the   
   >> medical providers.  Furthermore, many physicians will not accept   
   >> Medicare patients because of government payment policies.   
      
   >> It is a poorly disguised socialist program; there is no consideration   
   >> of how much may have been paid in.   
      
      
   > By your thinking, Herman, all the medical systems of the industrialized   
   > world are bogus.   
      
   Who said anything about bogus?  Totalitarian methods are not per se   
   bogus, but they usually do not do what is claimed.  Most of the European   
   systems allow private care outside the system, and that is used.   
      
   We do not value Mussolini, but it is a fact that he got the trains   
   to run on time.  The artistic and scientific levels of activity in   
   Italy were not reduced much, if at all, under him.   
      
      
   --   
   This address is for information only.  I do not claim that these views   
   are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.   
   Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University   
   hrubin@stat.purdue.edu         Phone: (765)494-6054   FAX: (765)494-0558   
      
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