By Woodrow Wilcox
Some politicians are calling for “Medicare for All.” If they knew the Medicare system, they never would suggest that.
Although there are many more, let me mention just three big problems with the current Medicare system:
- The current Medicare system makes fraud easy. The bookkeeping is broken. The problem resolution system is lousy. On April 9, the Associated Press reported that the federal government “busted” a massive $1.2 billion Medicare scam. Another error discovered showed that Medicare reported it had paid a hospital more than $500 over what Medicare had approved to pay the hospital. The bad systems of Medicare cost taxpayers’ higher taxes and senior citizens on Medicare higher premiums. When you consider there are millions of Americans currently on Medicare, these errors quickly add up. The Medicare system sucks money from the public treasury and from consumers’ wallets and erroneously pays them out.
- The Medicare system makes scamming seniors easy. Many times, false bills are sent to senior citizens over 100 days after the senior’s insurance company had already paid the bill. However, the medical-billing firm cashed the check from the insurance company and billed the senior citizen for the same money that was already paid by the Medicare supplement insurance company. This happens often and scams unsuspecting senior citizens of millions of dollars per year.
- The Medicare communication systems fail regularly. The systems break down hundreds of times per day for a second or a split second at a time. When that happens, claims and payments data are lost. Often, this results in Medicare supplement insurance companies not learning about claims and not paying the claims out of ignorance. You can’t blame an insurance company for not paying a claim that it never got from Medicare. Medical firms bill seniors for the balance that the insurance companies would have paid if the Medicare system worked properly. The result is that senior citizens pay balances that they really don’t owe. This one Medicare problem alone costs senior citizens over one billion dollars per year in wrongful medical bills.
The current Medicare system is far from perfect. Therefore, any “Medicare for all” system will create more problems for more citizens and more opportunities for fraudulently taking money from the federal government and from innocent patients.
So why are these politicians pushing for “Medicare for all”? Because these politicians are really striving for socialized medicine with a “single payer system”.
Let’s quickly examine what has happened in other countries with socialized medicine.
Here are three examples:
- Nazi Germany: Over six million Jews and various dissidents were murdered in concentration camps. The government decided that they did not need healthcare, or the same level of healthcare as other people favored by the government. The official name of the Nazi Party was National Socialist German Workers Party. Adolph Hitler and the Nazis were socialists. That socialist government decided who would and who would not get health care.
- Syria: The Arab Socialist Ba’th Party has governed Syria for decades. Government health care is provided only if you don’t disagree with government officials. Doctors aren’t free to serve those who need medical help. Citizens who are not favored by the government must pay bribes to government officials in order to get needed health care. Doctors who give medical attention to wounded enemies of the government are routinely arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and killed.
- Venezuela: This country rich with natural resources enough to create and sustain a vibrant economy is today under extreme civil unrest, due to its socialist policies.
Ronald Reagan said that a government that can give anything to you can take everything from you. Socialist countries have a history of using free or socialized health care to control and punish the citizens in order to suppress disagreement and political opposition. Is that really what you want for America?
America wants a private health care system where patients pay money to a doctor rather than pay a bribe to a government official. “Medicare for all” is a really bad idea.
Woodrow Wilcox is the author of the book “Solving Medicare Problem$.” For more than 16 years, he has helped senior citizens fight mistakes and fraud in the Medicare system. Wilcox has saved senior citizens over two million dollars by not paying bad medical bills.