Mon Dec 20, 7:55 AM ET Top Stories - Los Angeles Times
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — As restructuring Social Security (news - web sites) moves to the top of his agenda, President Bush (news - web sites) is sidestepping a troublesome problem: Medicare, which provides health insurance for 41 million elderly and disabled people, is fast going broke.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... epinggiant
Apart from the obvious unrest in Iraq, the main problem facing the US seems to be the fact that medicare is either going to leave hundreds of thousands of seniors out in the cold, cost workers alot more or cost the government a huge loan (somewhere in the region of a trillion dollars).
What will Bush do?
Americas Problem
Americas Problem
-Dale Jury
I predict that Bush will do nothing and leave the problem for whoever takes over next term.
I think ultimatley the option that will be taken is a huge loan - but actually I find it very hard to understand how American people vote so my reasoning that the politicians wouldn't want to screw over so many people when they are trying to get re-elected might not be true.
I doubt that raising taxes will be the solution - it seems that American's are often complaining about taxes despite the fact that they have one of the lowest tax rates in the developed world.
I think ultimatley the option that will be taken is a huge loan - but actually I find it very hard to understand how American people vote so my reasoning that the politicians wouldn't want to screw over so many people when they are trying to get re-elected might not be true.
I doubt that raising taxes will be the solution - it seems that American's are often complaining about taxes despite the fact that they have one of the lowest tax rates in the developed world.
We just hate seeing our hard earned dollars vanish without having a REAL say as to how the dollars actually get spent. It's almost like we would want to see an actual breakdown of each penny and where it goes. But like anything else, whose gonna pay for that? So we pay it and complain about paying it.
It's funny to me that our fore fathers hated taxation without representation to the point they fought a war and won, declared thier independence, and celebrated. Now we still celebrate once a year, but pay way more in taxes than we would have under the British.
So while our fight was just, in the end things got worse taxation wise despite all the so called "independence".
On topic:
Medicare sux and has always sucked for seniors. We have so many private helathcare organizations supplementing medicare, that it would be a disasterous occurance if suddenly the govt. fixed all the drama with medicare to the point that subsidies were no longer needed. More jobs would be lost in the industry, but at least seniors would be better taken care of. (I realize I ended the sentence with a preposition, that is a lazy ass American thing to do as well)
It's funny to me that our fore fathers hated taxation without representation to the point they fought a war and won, declared thier independence, and celebrated. Now we still celebrate once a year, but pay way more in taxes than we would have under the British.
So while our fight was just, in the end things got worse taxation wise despite all the so called "independence".
On topic:
Medicare sux and has always sucked for seniors. We have so many private helathcare organizations supplementing medicare, that it would be a disasterous occurance if suddenly the govt. fixed all the drama with medicare to the point that subsidies were no longer needed. More jobs would be lost in the industry, but at least seniors would be better taken care of. (I realize I ended the sentence with a preposition, that is a lazy ass American thing to do as well)
Go out and shred already.
~Damon Mathews
~Damon Mathews
FlexThis wrote:
On topic:
Medicare sux and has always sucked for seniors. We have so many private helathcare organizations supplementing medicare, that it would be a disasterous occurance if suddenly the govt. fixed all the drama with medicare to the point that subsidies were no longer needed. More jobs would be lost in the industry, but at least seniors would be better taken care of. (I realize I ended the sentence with a preposition, that is a lazy ass American thing to do as well)
Actually I found this interesting - it's the top ten countries based on public health funding per person and their rankings for life expectancy from birth.
1. Iceland $2,202 per capita 12. 79.8 years
2. Germany $2,063 per capita 30. 78.42 years
3. United States $2,051 per capita 48. 77.14 years
4. Denmark $1,986 per capita 49. 77.1 years
5. Norway $1,877 per capita 20. 79.09 years
6. Canada $1,826 per capita 11. 79.83 years
7. Switzerland $1,793 per capita 8. 79.99 years
8. France $1,785 per capita 16. 79.28 years
9. Belgium $1,616 per capita 33. 78.29 years
10. Australia $1,600 per capita 6. 80.13 years
So if we relate this back to the topic - the US has the worst ratio of public health funding to life expectancy of any country in the top 10. list. They spend $400 per person more than Australia, yet live 3 years less.
I think this really shows that the problem is not so much funding - but just implementing a better system of health care.
It's even more interesting when you compare it to this: the top ten of private health care funding - as you can see most of the same countries are in it:
1. United States $2,580 per capita
2. Switzerland $1,429 per capita
3. Netherlands $729 per capita
4. Canada $709 per capita
5. Germany $685 per capita
6. Austria $655 per capita
7. Belgium $652 per capita
8. Greece $622 per capita
9. Australia $611 per capita
10. France $564 per capita
So the US government spends about $4,500 on health care - which is more than any other country. The Australian Government spends about $2,200 on health care - or about half what the US spends - yet lives 3 years more...
And this isn't because Australians spend more money out of their own pockets than Americans - infact most Australians don't have private health care - because we don't need it - we have a fairly strong public health system compared with the rest of the world. Recently we've seen a lot of problems because the government has been reducing public health money and putting it into private health - but that's a different issue.
Statistics are from www.nationmaster.com
Edit:
The average American spends approx $4,200 every year on health.
The average Australian spends approx $1,700 every year on health.