Healthcare
Consider this simple bit of healthcare mathematics.
About 20% of the US population receives its healthcare through Medicaid. The cost for this coverage is a little over $300 billion. Or, put another way, it costs $300 billion to cover 60 million people. That's $5,000 per person.
It's universally accepted that Medicaid coverage is subpar. Seriously inadequate.
Meanwhile, about 40 million seniors are covered by Medicare. Their bill is $7,500 per person. A whopping 50% more than the outlay for Medicaid coverage. And Medicare doesn't cover pregnancy, childbirth or post-natal care.
In other words, this country already has government-run healthcare programs on which we can base estimates for a government healthcare plan to cover everybody.
There are 300 million US citizens today. If we spend $7,500 per person, our total bill will hit $2.25 TRILLION, or more than we pay today for our existing medical coverage.
But there's no reason to believe we'll spend only $7,500 per person when so many more medical conditions and so many more patients will receive coverage.
Meanwhile, if this country were to offer medical coverage to all citizens, that huge bonus would become a magnet for people around the world to drop everything, sneak into America and begin having children, who would be citizens at the time of their births.
Moreover, the John Edwards, medical malpractice plaintiffs' lawyers of the US would praise the government healthcare plan as the biggest cash award in the history of huge cash awards.
There would be no end to the medical malpractice lawsuits if the taxpayers were paying the bills. The sums awarded would reach punishing totals. Medicaid has been plagued by the huge cost of medical malpractice awards. And taxpayers pay the bill.
Thus, before there's any possibility of a national government healthcare plan in this country, we have to change our citizenship laws and limit lawsuit awards. But good luck on both fronts. Citizenship by birth and the right to sue are unlikely to experience change anytime soon.
About 20% of the US population receives its healthcare through Medicaid. The cost for this coverage is a little over $300 billion. Or, put another way, it costs $300 billion to cover 60 million people. That's $5,000 per person.
It's universally accepted that Medicaid coverage is subpar. Seriously inadequate.
Meanwhile, about 40 million seniors are covered by Medicare. Their bill is $7,500 per person. A whopping 50% more than the outlay for Medicaid coverage. And Medicare doesn't cover pregnancy, childbirth or post-natal care.
In other words, this country already has government-run healthcare programs on which we can base estimates for a government healthcare plan to cover everybody.
There are 300 million US citizens today. If we spend $7,500 per person, our total bill will hit $2.25 TRILLION, or more than we pay today for our existing medical coverage.
But there's no reason to believe we'll spend only $7,500 per person when so many more medical conditions and so many more patients will receive coverage.
Meanwhile, if this country were to offer medical coverage to all citizens, that huge bonus would become a magnet for people around the world to drop everything, sneak into America and begin having children, who would be citizens at the time of their births.
Moreover, the John Edwards, medical malpractice plaintiffs' lawyers of the US would praise the government healthcare plan as the biggest cash award in the history of huge cash awards.
There would be no end to the medical malpractice lawsuits if the taxpayers were paying the bills. The sums awarded would reach punishing totals. Medicaid has been plagued by the huge cost of medical malpractice awards. And taxpayers pay the bill.
Thus, before there's any possibility of a national government healthcare plan in this country, we have to change our citizenship laws and limit lawsuit awards. But good luck on both fronts. Citizenship by birth and the right to sue are unlikely to experience change anytime soon.
posted by no_slappz at 9:26 PM
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