Medicare and Medicaid easily could (should) be better

There are penalties for ignorance, and America pays them every day:

Almost Half of Medicare Patients Can’t Afford a Single Hospital Stay
New University of Pennsylvania research highlights growing health care affordability crisis.
By Huey Freeman

Read that headline again. Digest it’s meaning.

You have original Medicare. You are sick. But you can’t afford to go to the hospital. And you are not rare. Almost half of Medicare patients are just like you.

What the hell??

Americans who rely on Medicare to pay for hospital stays are often unable to pay the cost of the standard deduction,sometimes producing a financial shock.

Think about it, more. The federal government is Monetarily Sovereign. That means:

1. It never can run short of dollars.
2. It neither needs nor uses tax dollars to pay its bills. It just creates new dollars, every time it pays someone.
3. Those FICA dollars that are deducted from your pay, supposedly to fund Medicare, don’t fund anything. The govenment destroys them upon receipt, and creates new dollars to pay doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc.

But for some reason, which I’ll explain later, the government insists that you pay 20% of the bill.

Three years ago, my wife died in the hospital after a 2-week stay.

The bill was somewhere over $400,000 in total. Medicare paid $320,000. Fortunately, I paid for supplementary insurance, which covered nearly all the rest.

But for most people, that $80,000 would have landed them in bankruptcy court.

Why? Why does Medicare not pay the entire cost?

And so long as we’re asking questions, why do we have an alternative called Medicare Advantage that covers some things Medicare doesn’t, but with restriction original Medicare doesn’t have.

Why doesn’t original Medicare simply cover everything? Remember, the federal governmennt, being Monetarily Sovereign, cannot run short of dollars.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine found that almost half of such patients have insufficient funds to pay the $1,600 payment, the standard out-of-pocket cost.

Why, the out-of-pocket cost? Here are reasons given:

Medicare doesn’t cover 100% of costs for several reasons:

1. Cost Control: Having beneficiaries share in the cost helps control overall healthcare spending and prevents overuse of services. (The false beliefs are that the government can run short of dollars and people will visit the doctor too much.)
2. Sustainability: Given the rising healthcare costs, partial coverage helps ensure the program’s financial sustainability. (Same false beliefs as #1)
3. Incentive for Supplemental Insurance: Encourages beneficiaries to purchase supplemental insurance (Medigap) to cover the remaining costs, providing additional financial protection. (Apparently, the profits of private insurance companies are more important than the people’s finances.)
4. Budget Constraints: Full coverage would require significantly higher government spending, which might not be feasible given budget constraints. (Unnecessary budget constraints).

And now for the real reason:

5. The politicians are bribed by the rich (via campaign contributions and lucrative jobs) to widen the income/wealth Gap between the rich and the rest. The Gap is what makes the rich wealthy, and the wider the Gap, the wealthier they are.

Federal funding for health care narrows the Gap, so politicians invent excuses to claim it can’t be done.

Even beneficiaries with incomes above the federal poverty level sometimes cannot meet this expense after depleting their savings, according to the study results published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

However, the financial burden extends far beyond just the poorest Americans. “Many Medicare beneficiaries with modest incomes are at risk for financial hardship from costs of a single hospital stay,” the researchers wrote.

Think of yourself as a billionaire, and one of your kids can’t afford medical treatment. Would you allow him to go bankrupt? The federal govenment would.

“Nationally, 36 percent of beneficiaries report difficulty paying medical bills or delaying care due to cost concerns, and those with multiple chronic conditions and serious illnesses are at particular risk for high out-of-pocket costs and economic hardship,” they noted.

While Medicaid (not Medicare) and private supplemental insurance can help cover these costs, qualifying for such assistance often requires proving extreme financial hardship.

First,  you must be destitute and prove it.

Patients must prove that their income is at or below the federal poverty level—currently set at $15,060 for individuals and $20,440 for couples in 2024. There are also asset limits of $2,000 for individuals, and $3,000 for couples.

However, some (red) states have set higher thresholds, extending Medicaid limits to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

Why is there a need for Medicaid. Why not Medicare for All?

Additionally, access to full Medicaid benefits, including long-term care, depends on income criteria that varies by state—typically ranging from 75 to 100 percent of the federal poverty level.

Why should there be income criteria? Why must people go broke to be healthy?

Compounding the problem, fewer Medicare beneficiaries now carry supplemental insurance compared to previous years.

It’s too costly because it’s private, for-profit insurance

Among the 4,881 beneficiaries included in the Medicare study, 45 percent lacked sufficient funds in their checking and savings accounts to pay the Medicare hospital deductible.

Intolerable for the United States of America, a Monetarily Sovereign nation that acts like a 3rd world nation.

Seniors face many hardships resulting from health challenges that extend beyond just medical bills, according to Helen Levy, associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

Levy’s research identifies three main channels that lead to lower quality of life for seniors: decreased income, increased medical expenses, and the direct effects of health symptoms themselves.

“The first two of these—lower income and higher medical spending—are much less quantitatively important than the third; in a nutshell, poor health makes it harder to get by with less,” Levy wrote in her article on the effects of poverty on older Americans.

And then, what follows, is a clear expression of the ignorance that punishes us:

The key question that arises from this new study is how to respond to this insight, Dr. Chad Savage, an internal medicine physician, told The Epoch Times.

“A common reaction is to expand insurance policies or government programs to cover an ever-growing range of medical costs,” said Savage, a member of Samaritan Ministries Inc., a group whose members share medical expenses.

“However, this approach would increase the cost of coverage, thus, diverting more of the patients’ limited resources toward taxes and insurance premiums, and ultimately, depriving them of the funds they could have used for direct medical expenses.”

Dr. Savage’s comments are based on the wrong claim that the Monetarily Sovereign federal government cannot afford to fund a comprehensive Medicare for every man, woman, and child.

“The real issue, however, is why Americans remain so unprepared for medical expenses when they inevitably arise,” Savage added. “A legislative solution to address this could involve incentivizing proactive savings for medical costs that will inevitably occur as part of life.”

“By creating incentives for Americans to contribute to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) or Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs), they could gradually build up funds to cover out-of-pocket expenses for their own medical care when needed,” he said.

Dr. Savage is totally divorced from reality.

1. Many people are unable to meet all financial obligations of food, rent, and clothing, much less contributing to HSAs
2. For most Americans, saving enough in an HSA to cover major or recurring health issues would be impossible.

With infinite funds, the federal government can and should pay all medical expenses. The whole purpose of a government is to protect and improve the lives of the people.

What is the purpose of a government that can’t or won’t do it?

Here is what we need:

Free comprehensive Medicare for All.

Cover everything that Medicare Advantage covers, but do it in original Medicare. One program for all health needs.

No FICA payroll tax deductions. No fake “trust funds” (that aren’t trust funds). More generous payments to providers to attract more people into the field and more hospitals and clinics.

The federal government not only can afford it without collecting one additional penny in taxes, but the money spent by the government would grow Gross Domestic Product. And no, it wouldn’t cause inflation. See why.

The Dr. Savages of the world seem to reverse reality. They think people’s purpose is to improve and protect the government, while the government’s desires come first.

It’s nuts.

But as I repeatedly have said, there is a penalty for ignorance, and the people of America are paying it.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell
Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell;
MUCK RACK: https://muckrack.com/rodger-malcolm-mitchell;
https://www.academia.edu/

……………………………………………………………………..

The Sole Purpose of Government Is to Improve and Protect the Lives of the People.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Source: https://mythfighter.com/2024/11/02/medicare-and-medicaid-easily-could-should-be-better/