Dupe

[Beetwasher]

Self delete.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

1. I agree... if it was being extended across the board

God knows that simply lowering the medicare age from 65 to 55 and figuring out a way to pay for it would be great.

And if that happens I'm happy.

But if it is set up to use medicare as a backstop for a few poor people 55-65 it will not be the same thing.

I will still support it. I will support almost anything at this point.

And it is a foot in the door. That i reason enough to support it assuming there is no alternative.

But I am guessing that when I hit 55 in a few years I will probably not be on medicare.

[pinto]

2. HCR has taken an interesting turn with this proposal. Medicare pays out ~95% of premiums

to services. (i.e. It has a Medical Loss Ratio of ~5%. The MLR for private insurance runs up to 40%, iirc.) Provider payments need to be updated to meet current costs-of-doing business, imo, but it's an efficient program and could easily be expanded to include more people with minimum complication. The structure is *already* in place and operating.

How this plays out is another matter.

:shrug: