Medicare fiasco

McQ at QandO:

Another aspect of the new 'health crisis', and probably the one that is most disturbing, is the elevation of obesity to the status of a disease and what that means in terms of your liberty.

Medicare announced on July 15 that, after proclaiming for 40 years that obesity is a personal problem, not a clinical one, it now classifies the No. 2 cause of preventable death in America as an illness.

What Medicare did, without so much as a 'let's consult with the payers' is reach deep into your pocket and add another cost for you to 'share'. Yes, dear reader, you are now going to pay for diet programs, stomach stapling and diet maintenance. They may not have taken the money yet, but for each 'disease' they insist on creating, its only a matter of time before they fund its treatment.

Instead of obesity being a personal problem, it is now your problem. And you will pay, like it or not, to help anyone classified as 'obese' lose that weight , if they're a Medicare (and most likely Medicaid) member.

Medicare will be insolvent in a decade.

In the very time that it should be minding its finances more closely, it is breaking out the checkbook. Realizing that its future is threatened, it is reaching out, trying to cover as many people (voters) as possible.

It really doesn't matter whether obesity is a disease or not. What matters is that the people in Washington who are running Medicare are more concerned with short term political gain than financial solvency.

Ultimately, the voters will not save Medicare. The question is not whether Medicare "should" cover anything; it is whether it will be able to provide coverage.

The threat to Medicare does not come from the voters.

The threat comes from its own creditors: anyone who holds US savings bonds.

It is only a matter of time before this program -and all the good intentions that went with it - collapse under their own weight...uh, so to speak.
- posted by total @ 7/27/2004 05:43:00 AM .