To: TimF who wrote (47100 ) 11/17/2010 11:40:33 PM From: Peter Dierks Respond to Social Security is a huge problem, but an even bigger one is Medicare. Medicaid is huge as well. The so called "reform" didn't solve those problems. Cuts in payouts for procedures that are performed aren't going to work to a large enough extent, either they won't happen (which is reasonably likely) or they will just create shortage of doctors to treat Medicare and Medicaid patients, which will likely eventually get the larger payments restored, or which will cause the system to be a general failure. I would move the Medicaid age up, along with the Social Security age, and I think larger co-pays or deductibles, perhaps a restoration of the "doughnut hole" would be reasonable. Medicare itself is likely a bad idea, for poorer people you could have still had Medicaid (or some other program aimed at the same target), while for non-poor elderly people you could have them pay like everyone else who isn't poor (either out of pocket or more likely with private insurance), that's hindsight a couple of generations later, ending the program now isn't plausible, and ending it quickly isn't even reasonable.
