Regarding “Medicaid for all”, in a sense it is “free cheese”. And I see a lot of Medicaid I D’s in patient records here in the New England region.
However I wonder if some realize it isn’t as simple as not working to get the free health, or being an illegal & getting it.
Many who get it here are married, working people. Most likely they’re not offered group benefits & can’t afford individual coverage.
I also wonder if certain services that MUST be covered in MA & CT—for example diagnostics of infertility in MA & sex reassignment surgery in CT—as well as the increased number of family members (domestic partners & same sex spouses) there are in the recent century—help drive up the cost of providing private group policies for smaller employers.
That & all of the “Affordable” Care Act requirements, many small employers probably can’t afford health insurance for their employees, who are then forced onto the “free cheese”. I agree with you that Medicaid is a sort of free cheese, unlike Medicare, that working adults have contributed to their working years.
However, the reasons one may qualify for that cheese may vary. I just wish more realized that the more options & the more family members they request be covered, the more private health insurance prices will rise.
Exactly! When government provides free government cheese, the price of the cheese goes up. Is this not also true of Government financed college tuition? Have we not learned the increase in college tuition is proportionately equal to government financing tuition? Had government not been allowed to interfere in financing college tuition, and the free market system allowed to work, the cost of today’s college education would be drastically lower.
JWK
The Democrat Party Leadership’s offer for free government cheese is really not free. It first addicts and then enslaves participants on an iron fisted socialist run plantation.
I wonder, too, how many physicians would give up their practices in a Medicaid for all scheme. Both Medicare & Medicaid reimburse less than private insurance.
In some parts of the U S, it may be difficult to find a new Primary Care Physician for Medicare patients. In others, depending on which states, it may be more difficult to find a PCP who accepts Medicaid since expansion of that program.
According to one study, it’s the most difficult for those newly insured with Medicaid in New Jersey to find an accepting PCP, the least difficult in Wyoming.
I don’t think it’s coincidence housing prices are higher in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey & parts of California than they are in states that never experimented with the nonsense of rent controls.
You are absolutely correct! The average property tax bill for New Jersey residents was about $9,000 last year. In Florida, the average tax bill is a little over $1,500.
New York Politicians need that big tax money to pay for all the free cheese they bribe the unproductive with. That’s why I moved my business out of New York in the 1970s. I was sick and tired of paying for everyone’s free lunch.
JWK
There was a time not too long ago in New York when able-bodied people were ashamed to accept home relief, a program created by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1931 when he was Governor. Now there is an infestation of ticks and fleas in New York City who not only demand welfare, but use it to buy beer, wine, drugs, sex and Lotto tickets.
In my opinion, the most destructive thing which has happened with respect to America’s health insurance and healthcare delivery system is the government poking its nose in during Johnson’s “Great Society”, and the start of Medicare and Medicaid.
While Medicare was based upon private insurance practices and it was financed by a payroll tax for its recipients, Medicaid was a freebee which actually disincentivised the work ethic for many Americans which was needed to finance their own health insurance. I do remember many people during the 50s and 60s, my future wife being one, actually sought out a job which provided health insurance (Blue Cross and Blue Shield). But the introduction of Medicaid, a freebee, as predicted, would eventually take its socialist toll on patient “paid for” health insurance and healthcare.
As long as our federal government is allowed to violate our Constitution, and the free market system it was intended to create and protect, and allowed to stick its nose in our nation’s health insurance and health care, the benefits of a free market system, which actually encourages people to be productive and prosperous, will deteriorate, while a dependent class will steadily grow that envies, scorns and is jealous of the most productive and successful members of the community.
JWK
The Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s socialism will promise food on the table, free public housing, health care for all, guaranteed income, free college tuition, and other niceties by taxing the so called rich; and if by chance their socialist leadership gains control because of such promises made, the end result, as John Adams stated, “will be revengeful, bloody, and cruel” especially for the most productive, hardworking members of the community.
So we should make it worse by lowering the eligible requirement age and then give Medicare benefits to everyone? OH YEAH that sounds like a great plan alright!
Why would it get worse? Funding that would otherwise go to private insurance companies would be paid in to Medicare and there would be net savings due to lower administrative costs.
This is the LBJ “Great Society” scam part deux (or perhaps trois or quatre or cinq).
I was a rosy cheeked 14 year old remembering my father cursing the tv at that “fat Texas jagoff” who robbed the Social Security Trust fund to finance whopping welfare give aways. I’m now collecting Social Security and Medicare but I paid for it for years! I also know mine and others are on borrowed time. The reality is Social Security is running on paper IOU’s.
Medicaid for all indeed!! Whooo Hoo
Most receipents of any insurance product receive much much more than they pay in when they file a claim. Imagine a serious auto accident or house fire.
