CLEAN THE PARASITES OUT OF MEDICARE!
Some things, like national defense, are best done by a disciplined and highly motivated agency of state, that is, by socialism. The correct way to solve Medicare is simple: socialize it, and remove the parasites. I do not mean those who need medical care, I mean the INSURANCE INDUSTRY which profits on every stitch and pill by what is in fact a rigged form of gambling, and for whom actually providing medical care is not the objective. No, providing medical care is on the expense side of their ledger, something they want to minimize. (This is basic MBA duuh stuff, like creating jobs. Companies do not want to create jobs, which are labor costs they don’t want if they don't have to. Given money to expand, they prefer to cut labor and invest in more profitable alternatives, not hire a bunch of pedal-pumpers as some sort of political gesture. “Tax breaks create jobs,” is a pathetic lie to get workers to vote conservative in fear of losing their jobs, and the unemployed to vote red in the hope of being hired.)
As with the care provided to wounded soldiers by the Army Medical Corps, government could pay directly for the actual care, at the lowest possible wholesale cost. ZERO to insurance premiums, and no fat commissions for commissioners and contractors. Should this be the only way then, and replace what we have now? NO. Keep the private sector business exactly as it is, and if you want to buy their insurance and receive their services, you go right ahead. The Federal Medical Corps would operate in coincidental competition with the private sector hospital system, but not as a controlling entity or sub-contracting agency. It would not impose standards on the AMA hospitals and staff, and it would not take its standards from those, but could operate as its Flag Officers and Cabinet Secretary determined best for its mission.
If you were willing to go into the FEDMED hospital, or a VA hospital, or an Army field hospital and take what you get there.... would that be bad? NO. Our military Medical Corps are the excellent example: they work for the same salaries as other officers and troops, with the same gung-ho attitude that means giving the most medical care (not making the most money) to those they serve (the sick and wounded, not boards of employers), from a sense of pride and true service to America, exactly like the grunts on the line and jet jocks and rotorheads feel. Ask the troops how they feel about trusting their medics to save their lives. What soldiers do every day is heroic, and what their medics do every day is miraculous. I believe such a uniformed domestic US Medical Corps, just like the Coast Guard or the Air Force, would have the same esprit de corps, professionalism and top-only standards as the Marines, and would eagerly strive to best serve every human being who came into the place with the best they have, regardless of that patient’s gender, race, rank, religion, registration, or insurance coverage.
This would provide real medical care (not bullslick insurance coupons) to the deep class of Americans who are below even the working poor stratum, many of whom have never had insurance in their lives, though seniors now. It would really create good living wage jobs for thousands of people with medical skills, and for construction and maintenance jobs too. It would cost bupkis compared to collecting profitable insurance premiums with the IRS and the courts, and paying the profitable medical industry the gluttonously inflated costs of providing that same medical care. The socialist FEDMED system would be much less expensive than what we are paying now, and would provide better day-to-day "old country doctor" type common health care to all of us except the rich, who presumably will still choose to patronize the insurance companies and hospitals they have now, and good for them, as those hospitals are truly awesome and a blessing for those who can afford them. It is a win/win situation for both the best of a socialist system and the best of the free market too. Well, it will be a little rough on big capitalist medbiz and the insurance guys, but hey, a big racket is still a racket, right? If real care and real economy are the objectives, then you either take the rackets down, or you end-run them as I have suggested here.
James Post www.postpubco.com/anticyclops.htm
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