The 'Medicare for all' nightmare

Medicare for all sounds like a nightmare to me. I don't know if you have ever dealt with Medicare on a tough issue, but I have, and it was a disgusting and enlightening experience. My 91-year-old mom fell and broke her back in the summer of 2017. I took her to the hospital in severe pain, and they were shooting her up with fentanyl and morphine, but they said she would have to go home. You see, if they admitted her and she was able to stay for three days, Medicare would be liable for the first twenty days in a nursing home facility and possibly liable for 80% of an additional eighty days. The doctors said a broken back and severe pain were not a good enough reason to justify admittance for Medicare. It took around twelve hours, but I was able to get her admitted, because we were "lucky" enough that she also had a urinary tract infection.

Democrats, through Obamacare, rewarded hospitals with bonuses if they didn't readmit patients who were sick; they appeared to be punished if they dared let them stay three days in the first place. As a consequence of these bonuses, I am sure more have died. After nine days in the hospital, they sent her to a nursing home. After forty days there, Medicare, all of a sudden, cut her off, saying she was good enough to go home. Mom had lost 15 pounds, from 129 to 114 pounds, was aspirating her food, couldn't eat, bathe, walk, dress, or medicate herself, but according to Medicare, she was good enough to go home. The nursing home wouldn't fight this (my guess is, they would be punished if they dared argue), but I did. I was told they had no idea that she was in that condition, so they allowed her to stay. Then, in a few more days, they cut her off again, and a few days after that, she died. I thought, what the heck would the poor, the less educated, and the elderly do if they didn't have an advocate, like me, fighting against the bureaucracy? They would just give up and take whatever the government forced on them. For 240 years, the U.S. life expectancy went up without Obamacare, and most people were happy with their health care. After a few years of Obamacare, where freedom of choice was taken away, life expectancy unexpectedly dropped for three straight years despite massive premium and out-of-pocket costs. And now Democrats want more government. They always want more government. Politicians are willing to destroy millions of jobs related to health insurance along with hundreds of billions in stock values and real estate values. How much would states, cities, and pension funds lose if these millions of jobs were destroyed to give government more power and control of our lives? Revenues from sales taxes, income taxes, and property taxes would go down substantially. Democrats seem to want more people to be dependent on government, and single-payer health care would certainly contribute to that. Think of how much federal government employees make in salaries and benefits compared to the private sector, yet replacing private sector employees with federal bureaucrats is what is being proposed. What would the government costs look like for Medicare for all if they had to reflect the cost of future pensions, along with accrued sick and vacation leave? What if the agencies had to reflect the interest expense along with depreciation costs in their budgets? There would be no incentive for government to hold down costs, and they would just continue to jack up income or payroll taxes for the shortfall. Think of what happened to college costs when government started throwing money at colleges. I have never seen a government program that reduces costs or comes in even close to expectations, and single-payer health care would dwarf all others. Democrats rail against private-sector monopolies, but they love government monopolies, which are much more dangerous to our freedom and prosperity. I would much rather negotiate with a large private-sector company which has competition than with government bureaucrats with no competition and no incentive to give good customer service. If we want to lower costs get rid of mandates and give people more choice, not less choice. Democrats say they want health care for all, but they vote to withhold health care for newborn babies if they are unwanted. Why would we trust them not to cut off health care from the elderly or disabled if they were unwanted? Image credit: Juhan Sonin.