The last Medicare rant (this week anyway)


The old familiar song
Here are my objections to Medicare in a nutshell.

With any other insurance, the choice is up to the consumer.

If your auto insurer insisted after someone else totaled your car that the only replacement available was a 1989 Yugo, you would change your auto insurance company.

If your homeowner's or renter's policy provider refused to pay off after a lightning fire destroyed your home, you would be looking for new insurance right after you found a good lawyer.

In any other insurance, you choose what to buy, the company, the type of coverage. The companies may make it nearly impossible to understand the policies, but ultimately the choice is yours.

It's the worry that you will take your business elsewhere that keeps the insurance companies reasonably honest. They know that someone can come along and undersell them with the same or better coverage.

With Medicare, you have no choice.

You are required by law to pay into the system.

You are required to only use the coverage that the system provides, or pay through the nose for exceptions.

And the medical providers listen to who pays the bills, not to who needs the service.

You have no choice. Even if you can afford better and have found better, you still have to pay for Medicare.

If it were anyone except government doing it, we would call it extortion.

What's more, the presence of "free" services drives private alternatives away. It's a version of Gresham's Law. Private alternatives would be market focused, Medicare is government focused. Even though Medicare doesn't begin to meet all that is demanded, it is the only game around. People can't get additional needed services except by going through Medicare first.

And that is why Medicare infuriates me on a personal level.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Wed - October 25, 2006 at 10:31 AM  Tag


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