I Love Medicare

I have collected Medicare since 2005. There’s a belief that this means I get free medical care, but that’s definitely not true. Both Medicare Part A and B have deductibles, and sensible retirees buy a policy that pays most of what Medicare doesn’t pay (and it doesn’t pay quite a lot). There is also Medicare Part D which requires a premium that pays for drugs. Believe it or not, Part D was passed by Republicans.

Being Republicans they made sure the plan met the approval of pharmaceutical companies, and it does. They love it. Part D specifically forbids Medicare from negotiating for lower prices. Other government departments such as the V.A. can negotiate. Hospitals and private health insurers can negotiate. Medicare can’t. As a result, Part D premiums, no less than drug prices, have been shooting up each year.

The result is that I pay about $550 a month for medical insurance. In exchange, I get almost no medical bills. I love it. Even though Medicare is a government program, I receive less paperwork than when I belonged to Blue Cross (even writing “Blue Cross” produces a surge of anger; I hated it). 

My brother, a physician, detests Obamacare. He is liberal and an activist, and he dislikes Obamacare because it delivers a bonanza to insurance companies with no controls on cost. His criticisms are correct, but I tell him that as premiums skyrocket the outcry will force Washington to take action.

Conservatives tell us that in European national health plans the downtrodden physician takes his orders and pitiful salary from the government. In fact, all these countries have some private insurance. In many, such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, everyone buys medical insurance from private carriers just as they do in the US. The difference is that laws closely regulate them. The carriers aren’t losing money.

Things will work out.