Medicare may soon run out of money causing the program to cease to exist if drastic changes are not made. In 2006, the cost of medicare for the government was over $420 billion dollars, this cost was %25 more than just a year before. For this reason the majority of political minds all agree we must try to reduce expenditures while providing even better services to its millions of dependents. Soon the number of medicare recipients will be on the rise with "baby boomers" coming to retirement. One study found that by 2020 more than %16 of the U.S. population will be over the age of 65. At the same time, medical suppliers have stood strong in the task to improve their programs to service these aging people, but it all has a cost. The equipment is expensive to buy, it must be worked by highly trained, and these people must be paid high amounts of money. Also some doctors know how to work the Medicare system, they mess up on their diagnosis, and do multiple procedures and appointments to get more money from the government. To save money, and to try to keep doctors more honest, the "pay-for-performance" system was established in July of 2007. This voluntary program will provide doctors with a 1.5 percent bonus for providing information about the type and quality of their services. The people that don't like ideas like this believe some doctors will become "cook book doctors" because with so many regulations it may undermine the doctor's judgement. These are a couple of the ideas of how to improve Medicare, and try to save it before it runs out of money, leaving millions without care, and stressing their budgets to try to afford insurance.
I agree that something drastic needs to be done to try to save the Medicare system. With millions of people depending on the coverage they receive to keep them healthy in their later ages. The way to accomplish this necessary task, I am very undecided. I think it is necessary, but sad, that we need to have the pay-for-performance system in place. Doctors should want their name to be recognized with good work, and want to take pride in their work, but with greed people tend to try to bend the rules to get as much money as they can. We need to try to do something to get drug companies to lower their prices on medicines and new medical instruments. With increased costs because of aging men and women, we need to find a way to pay for the system while trying to improve it, if possible to do both. I think the only way to keep Medicare supporting millions, we will end up having to raise taxes or cutting certain people off. We may have to make a decision who deserves the care, although all have paid for it if they had jobs that pay taxes, but some people take a lot of the money. If one person lives a healthy life and needs a little help, we should help them, but if someone smokes, drinks, is overweight, should we help them? Did they not know the consequences? This would be another controversial way of solving the scarcity of funding. I don't know if that is the answer, but we should certainly consider it. All I know for certain is that we need to do something drastic before the program is wiped out in the very near future, causing a backlash from the taxpaying baby- boomers, who have lost all the money they were expecting to obtain. An opinion from, Kevin Pho, shows an exapmple of cutting back on doctors errors that they collect money twice on. You can read it at http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/01/medicares-mista.html
To read a blog on comprehensive vs. incremental health care reform go to Olivia Rice's blog at http://oliviarice.blogspot.com/.
For a blog on Issue #3, "Safe to Eat?", go to Kate Gearman's blog at, http://kategearman.blogspot.com/.
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