They paid for it in advance. It’s not an entitlement program. It was purchased in advance. It is an earned benefit.

Let’s not argue on this one. It annoys me too much when the elderly are painted as leeches off the system.

AnninCA on November 13, 2009 at 11:19 AM

I’m ascribing no ill intent to Seniors, but there is some pretty serious transfer going on here. First, the program isn’t actuarially balanced across generations; second, it leads to subsidization of Medicare patients by non-Medicare patients at a medical-practice level.

I say we let the Feds come up with a reform-type package (no rescission, no preexisting conditions) and tell the insurance companies they can sell it across state lines if they do so as (spun-off) nonprofits. The Swiss have 80-plus private organizations providing health insurance to their 8 million citizens. Good outcomes, lower rates of medical inflation than here, and the government doesn’t have its thumb up everyone’s backside.

Quite honestly I think the general population is much like our politicians on an issue like this. Someone says, “How about free health care, universal coverage for all,” and they say “Sure, sounds great!” It’s easy to support something like that when nobody has to worry about actually writing in and implementing the details, to say nothing of paying for them.

But now we have a very leftwing Congress and President, some sort of health care or insurance legislation is a very real possibility, and all of a sudden both citizens and politicians (well, some of them, anyway) see that it’s not so easy, “free” healthcare isn’t really free, and there are very serious, hard decisions that have to be made, and very real costs have to be borne by someone. Not at all surprising that the answers to such polling questions suddenly take on a very different tone.

jwolf on November 13, 2009 at 11:19 AM

Best comment on the thread!

Most Americans are caring, generous people (we donate more to charity, and more foreign aid per capita than any other nation), and when they are asked about “X million people don’t have health insurance and might die if they get sick”, they react, “Oh, that’s horrible, we should DO something about it”, or maybe, “the government should do something about it”.

But when the 85% who do have health insurance, either private or Medicare or Medicaid, are faced with the real possibility of making huge sacrifices to be forced into a one-size-fits-all system run by the Government with a long history of screwing things up, they get scared, for good reason.

It would be interesting to study Gallup’s polling on this issue since Medicare was passed in 1965. Back then, it was part of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” program, when people didn’t worry about deficits (Eisenhower had balanced budgets!!!), and the oldest Baby Boomers were starting to work and become taxpayers.

During the Nixon years, Vietnam and Watergate were the major issues of the day, Medicare was paid for by the flood of Baby Boomers in the job market, and nobody worried about health insurance. During the Carter years, the economy tanked, and oil prices, inflation, and interest rates were the main concerns.

During the Reagan and Bush 41 years, a few liberals started grousing about the high cost of health care, but Reagan and Bush 41 had other issues on their plates–getting the economy going, facing down the Soviet Union and Saddam Hussein.

During Clinton’s first two years (1993-94) came the HillaryCare proposal, which sounded good when candidate Clinton proposed in 1992, but the public soured on it when the costs and the nuts-and-bolts of the proposal became known.

Republicans took over Congress in 1995, and HillaryCare died. When they tried to simply “reduce the rate of increase” in Medicare costs, they were ferociously rebuked by Democrats and accused of “throwing Grandma off a cliff in a wheelchair”. Proposals for tort reform and state-to-state portability of health insurance were frequently rejected by Democrats, friends of the trial lawyers, one of whom (John Edwards) ran for President in 2000 and 2004.

As long as Republicans controlled Congress and/or the White House, people knew that government-run health insurance would never happen, so they could tell Gallup, “Sure, why not”? But when faced with the real possibility of high costs, loss of benefits, and government-rationed care when a Democrat Congress and President might actually enact it (1993-94 and now), suddenly the American people revolt.

Socialized medicine has always been a pleasant pipe dream, which has led to nightmares everywhere it has been tried. The devil is in the details, and when people study the details, they revolt, which is why Pelosi, Reid, and Co. are trying to keep the details secret.

rocketman on November 13, 2009 at 12:33 PM

I don’t disagree at all. But claiming that you are entitled to it because you paid for it, is still a stretch. No? Tell me you are entitled to it because paid into it or you were prmoised that you would get x amount in the end, regardless of how much you paid in, and I’ll buy that argument. Let’s go back to the car example. You promise me that I will get Car A for X amount, as long as I pay $10 per month toward it for Y years, regardless of how much the car is actually worth after Y years. At the end of Y years, you tell me I can’t have the car for what I paid in. You broke the deal.

Federal Health Care just “might be” a good idea but how Constitutional is it?  If we want and/or desire to have federal health care, an amendment must be placed in ……

GaltBlvnAtty on November 13, 2009 at 12:26 PM

You will get no argument from me.

GaltBlvnAtty on November 13, 2009 at 11:57 AM

I am not addressing whether we should honor it, I am just saying that if you say you aleady paid for it, you are not wholly correct. Also, while I agree that it was promised, and therefore a deal is a deal, that’s not how things work in reality. I was promoised full SSN at age 65, but that was changed, so that now I can’t get it until I am 68. People often have to adjust to reality. Pretty simple fact.

Hopefully, Republicans who adopt the principles of federalism and small-L libertarianism won’t forget them so easily again.

That’s not federalism you’re seeing, Ed; it’s Obama Derangement Syndrome.

Now they are starting to realize that the question really was “Should the Federal Government take over health care and run it the same way they run the post office, the DMV, and the public school system while they destroy 1/6th of our economy and bankrupt the nation. That is starting to get a NO.

I predict that, as more people start to catch on, soon it will get a HELL NO!

So while majorities do support Medicare, the criticisms of those on it point to the problem of large government programs. Even with general support, the system, itself, is going insolvent and so backing of it is a net drain to the federal government and offers only somewhat lower prices (in comparison with private plans) while putting a number of hurdles, stumbling blocks and legal bureaucracy in the way of those using it. And since it can’t pay for everything, it requires other plans to help supplement it, thus creating confusion between who pays for what.

The anecdotal evidence in my life follows that formula: ‘Yes it is nice, but…’ and from there is the litany of paperwork, lost notices, going around and around with bureaucrats, not getting full reimbursement, having to pay for more insurance, not getting full prescription reimbursement and on and on and on.

Now imagine pushing that system down on everyone.

Where you become a ward of the State and have your healthcare decided by the whimsy of bureaucratic rules and regulations, find the cost expanding beyond what government can do, have multiple hurdles put in your way for simple referrals and prescriptions, don’t have full coverage thus requiring additional plans, paperwork and deconfliction between them…. is it any wonder why people are getting disenchanted with this idea even when such an abysmal system as Medicare gets support? And if you offered tax free medical savings accounts that rolled over year to year, the ability to invest in health care before you needed it, and otherwise treated it as an investment in your future (which it is) via tax breaks that we get for IRAs, plus allows companies to put tax free money into your account for you to manage your medical care… from what we have seen that would get support. Throw in 100% write-off for donations to medical charities, hospitals and so on, and you would see a consumer and public supported system with government subsidies by NOT taking money away from you.

That system would be better than what we have now and be an improvement on what our grandparents and great grandparents had and they never saw people dying in the streets save for the Great Influenza Epidemic. And we can’t handle that latter TODAY and that is WITH government help.

Can’t have that, now, can we? Citizens running their own lives and supporting each other and government helping to make that happen.

Exactly. My Grandfather retired from Goodyear (non-union) the year Medicare came into being. He would have had a nice little medical plan to cover him and my grandmother that Goodyear provided at a reasonable cost to him, but they took that away cause, hey, he is now covered under Medicare. He had no choice what-so-ever in accepting Medicare.

Johnnyreb on November 13, 2009 at 11:40 AM

Precisely what happened to us except it was Pfizer. Interestingly, the supplemenatal policy, provided by the company, which was supposed to be cost free now costs several hundred a month.

“Gallup can’t quite put its finger on why things have suddenly changed:”

Gee, ya think maybe it’s the threat of doing jail time if you don’t comply?

Or, maybe most folks simply don’t want their tax dollars being used to murder unborn babies and insuring illegal aliens? Or, it could be the promised Medicare cuts, the expected rationing, or bureaucrats determining your medical procedures instead of your doctor. Perhaps it’s the expense of this entire crap sandwich that’s being shoved down our throats…ya think?

Golly, Gallup can’t put it’s finger on why things have suddenly changed…and I’m running out of fingers trying to count the ways government run health care will be the ruination of our lives!

Agreed, but it’s a shame too. People aren’t principled enough, and it takes the near destruction now, of our nation, for people to get it? Truly sad. Wake up people, stay involved, and stay alert.

capejasmine on November 13, 2009 at 11:51 AM

This can been seen in how the word “Idealogue” is used as a pejorative. So if I like to think through my ideas and want to defend them, that is bad how?