From: ahk@chinet.com

Stephen Sprunk  wrote:
>On 27-Apr-15 11:27, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>Stephen Sprunk  wrote:
>>>On 25-Apr-15 21:27, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>>>>You may have noticed that Medicare isn't means tested, so that's
>>>>simply not true.

>>>And why do we have Medicare in the first place?  Private insurance
>>>for seniors was so expensive (if available at all) that virtually
>>>none of them could afford it.

>>You can't support that statement.

>Good grief, Adam; that was an established fact ~50 years ago when
>Congress enacted Medicare in the first place.  Since then, seniors'
>income has gone up at less than the rate of general inflation, while
>medical costs have gone up at twice the rate of general inflation, so
>there is no question they couldn't afford it now.

We keep people alive for hours or days at extraordinarily high cost
for absolutely no benefit to the patient, something that wasn't
done 50 years ago, so you're making an apples and oranges comparison.

We're also doing surgery today that wasn't done way back when; not
comparable.

In fact, health care would likely be dirt cheap without including the
end-of-life crap.

>>>The cost of means testing would be higher than the savings from
>>>denying coverage, just as we've seen recently in states requiring
>>>drug testing for welfare benefits, so it is a net savings to just
>>>offer it to everyone.

>>You can't support that statement either.

>The "means testing" overhead in welfare is an _enormous_ expense, and
>people slip through the cracks anyways due to undocumented income.

Ok, so Medicaid just has no way to deliver services to those poor.
Funny how that doesn't prevent seniors from being on Medicaid to
pay for nursing home care.

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