Barack Obama promised to lower taxes on 95% of all Americans. Those of us who weren’t drinking the Kool-Aid understood that he was lying, and now we see it play out. The House just passed the S-CHIP expansion bill, which is the first step toward nati….

Grim.

No nation of our size has the money — even if we spent all our money — to create a “free” “national healthcare” system that would involve competent, thorough care for all. It’s just not possible with our population.

Sweden, for example, has a much, much smaller population that the U.S., so in Sweden, they can manage a lot of great services for all residents and enjoy paying all those taxes accordingly (they get good to great services for all those taxes they pay, so they don’t mind them as much), but their limited population size is what makes that possible.

In the U.S., with our huge population, we could never manage any quality of care as to services for all. Nor continue to develope quality of care if so. Private-payor process makes our unique healthcare system possible, and unfortunately, it costs money to do so.

Congress enjoys a very nice healthcare system because members there enjoy a “group healthcare plan” that meets their enrollees’ every needs. But that quality of care will never be possible nationwide. The only thing close to that are OTHER private payor plans that cost consumers a good amount of money to maintain them, BUT, they get coverage for most of what is needed.

You kidding? Doctors would love nothing more than having 100% of their patients on medicare. It’s guaranteed payment

MEDICAID. Not “Medicare.”

Medicare actually worked for a long while — good to above good quality of care for enrollees, services readily available, doctors happy to treat Medicare patients — UNTIL Congress started lopping off the reimbursement rates for doctors while raising rates for Medicare enrollees and reducing covered services.

THEN it became a problem as it remains now of Medicare enrollees often not being able to locate any practitioners who will even accept Medicare patients (low reimbursement, many of them figure they can earn more for the same services by not treating Medicare patients).

IN some case, MEDICAID reimburses at a higher rate without arguments so doctors can offer a wider range of services to Medicaid patients versus Medicare patients.

MEDICAID is the “state funded” “welfare” or “freebie” service that impoverished people without any or with very low income receive as a part of state social services (along with other services like SSI payments, food stamps and such through State Human Services departments, upon application, income-determined, as in, one has to be very low income to qualify so many illegal aliens DO qualify [fraudulently] AND/OR their relatives who may be legal, such as their children or elderly relatives who they import because of Medicaid availability).

MEDICARE is only made available via the federal Social Security Administration to people either over 65 and retired (when they file for retirement after working before retirement), OR workers/younger adults who are disabled after working and paying the Social Security taxes adequate to qualify. MEDICARE involves a monthly payment inorder to be maintained by enrollees — currently about a hundred bucks a month for both Parts (hospitalization and clinical).

MEDICAID, by comparison, is not age-related or age-determined nor even health-determined (whether disabled or not under 65, if income is severely restricted, you are offered Medicaid on application — so many disabled adults who have not paid enough into the Social Security process via taxes when disabled end up on Medicaid, but it’s based upon their non-qualifying for Medicare due to not enough taxes paid and them not having much to any income, NOT based upon their disablement or disabling condition).

MEDICARE is based upon age (retirement) or under age if disabled BUT DEPENDS ON whether or not someone’s paid beyond a certain amount into the Social Security system via taxes withheld for that purpose. If not, you get sent to Social Services in your state where you’re enrolled in “welfare” or non-taxes paid SSI payments, Medicaid for healthcare and other helps.

People in Medicaid today actually get more services than those enrolled in Medicare. For example, the elderly or disabled who need nursing care, they have to become impoverished (divorce a spouse who has more income, put assets in someone else’s name inorder to be declared impoverished) inorder to pay for nursing home care (Medicare doesn’t pay for that, Medicaid does).

Medicaid recipients do pay a copay but they also get more services than Medicaid does and more doctors today accept Medicaid than do Medicare.

Medicaid money to states struggling to pay existing bills. What in fact it does is dramatically expand the number of Americans who qualify for Medicaid.

I’ve been saying this and saying this and writing this now for YEARS — THIS is the “Howard Dean” (Hillary Clinton) “national healthcare” plan and process that the Left has been advancing now for years.

And, although we down one Democrat Leftist, we don’t down their plans as a group and the group plan is to expand a “Medicaid” model nationwide just as Howard Dean did in Vermont, to the failure of any quality of public healthcare there (and which has ruined Vermont’s economy — thus, the Stimulus Obama, et al. are now cooking up).

I’ve been like a voice crying in the wilderness about this process that the Left (Hillary, Obama, many of the Leftwing (so-called) “veterans’” but Leftwing groups and such who claim that national healthcare is necessary) — what their plan is is just to expand Medicaid nationwide (your taxpayer dollars) to accomplish this tomfoolery called “national healthcare” AND which will result in “expanded” healthcare “places” and services such as anyone today can go see and experience in the real at any public healthcare office. You’ll see just what it involves if you stop by a public health office and take it all in…

THIS STIMULUS ALSO contains many billions to “digitalize medical records.” TAKE NOTE.

So, no wonder Google’s CEO is slurping at the bottle of the White House lately. Among others.

The Anchoress makes a worthwhile observation: We’ve watched the press pretend to beat their breasts for “not asking the tough questions of Bush” in the time leading up to the……

Doctors should be at the front of the barricades.

JiangxiDad on January 30, 2009 at 12:03 PM

You kidding? Doctors would love nothing more than having 100% of their patients on medicare. It’s guaranteed payment. As opposed to fighting with insurance companies for payment. It would be as if every contract you ever had was a federal govt contract. Bliss from the viewpoint of a small business.

“Stealthcare”

RalphyBoy on January 30, 2009 at 8:07 PM

Good tag. It ought to be hammered home over the next few days.

And told him or her to reject the economic stifle-us bill? If not, now is the time. Do it. There is no excuse. UPDATE: Via HotAir, Power Line gives us more reasons to make phone calls to our Senators: Kimberly……

Does the incidence of Americans going to Canada for their meds give you any clue?

factoid on January 30, 2009 at 12:18 PM

Your name is perfect. The definition of “factoid” would be “something that sounds like a fact but isn’t.

And your “example” doesn’t fly. Going north to get cheaper drugs is one thing. Going south to get treatment you can’t get (or can’t get for six months or a year, and you’ve got a growing cancer that will be terminal by then) is something else altogether.

So much for Obama’s “new politics”, he’s just another Chicago thug gangster in a suit.

hawksruleva on January 30, 2009 at 4:35 PM

Good comment.

Actually, I agree with you. I was being a little sarcastic and not very accurate in my comment. I have read that the Republicans were set to have a significant pickup in the 1938 election because of the terrible economy, but that was ameliorated by the expectation of getting into a big war and by the “don’t change horses” theme which was full fledged in 1940 and 1944 elections.

I look forward to WW III to get us out of The Greatest Depression. In the mean time I expect a Constitutional Amendment to allow The One to remain in office since we need him so much, you know like FDR.

burt on January 30, 2009 at 1:35 PM

Actually, I think the latest studies of historical economics belive that World War II didn’t end the Great Depression, it just artificially masked the symptoms by sending men overseas. There were still shortages, and personal consumption increased only 2.5%.

http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2008/10/wwii-cured-the.html