Getting a bulk discount on Medicare drugs would be an excellent place to begin, but we'd have to out-bribe the pharmaceutical companies for that to happen.

Both of the above comments are great, and I'd like to add only two words at this point:

Means testing.

Maybe we need to start #Occupy Ice Floe, if you get my drift.

/Also in favor of means testing. If I am fortunate enough not to need it if my financial planning is sound, then I don't expect anyone to hand it to me.

That's true. We need a single payer health care system so we can get those costs under control.

vpb: That's true. We need a single payer health care system so we can get those costs under control.

That's it, let the the people who've done such a splendid job with defense, education and economics call the shots on health care, too.

Better only catch diseases that do well in polls.

Gulper Eel: vpb: That's true. We need a single payer health care system so we can get those costs under control.

That's it, let the the people who've done such a splendid job with defense, education and economics call the shots on health care, too.

Better only catch diseases that do well in polls.

Can't do worse than the for-profit health care insurers have, that's for sure.

Nabb1: Maybe we need to start #Occupy Ice Floe, if you get my drift.
.

It would also address the problem of the polar bears' food stocks.

It really is a win-win.

SurfaceTension: Can't do worse than the for-profit health care insurers have, that's for sure.

Indeed we can do worse - and do.

The guy Obama appointed to run Medicare for the past year or so figured Medicare is wasting 20-30% of its budget. Couple hundred billion dollars a year. This is to be expected in a system biased in favor of paying claims, no matter how wasteful or fraudulent.

As money-grubbing sonsabiatches, private insurers are biased against approving wasteful claims as bad for the bottom line. This causes well-documented trouble, but flipping their model on its head is no improvement.

Single-payer works in nations with strong traditions of honesty and competence in government. You know, like Norway and...and...er.

At least when a private insurer farks people over, I as an evil capitalist can invest in the private insurer and make some money off that. When the federal government farks people over, I as a crony capitalist can make money off it too - but first I have to buy a bunch of legislators and that's shiatloads more expensive than stocks, and then I have to share my ill-gotten gains with Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner even after I bought them fair and square.

Gulper Eel: The guy Obama appointed to run Medicare for the past year or so figured Medicare is wasting 20-30% of its budget. Couple hundred billion dollars a year.

So, that means it's exactly as good as private companies that only spend 70% or so of their income on actual patient care? Not bad for a supposedly completely inefficient government bureaucracy.

Hobodeluxe: those two programs have their own funding. their own separate withholding. they aren't a part of the normal federal tax budget.

Both of which are running deficits. Social Security for the past two years. Medicare for a long time now. The last Republicans (Congress and Bush) made the Medicare problem worse with the prescription drug plan.

Hobodeluxe: you could tweak the cap on Soc Security and make those earnings above (what is it now about 120k?) taxable and fix it easily.

And probably make it unconstitutional in the process. It's a defined benefit, so there has to be a cap on collection. If you remove the limit on contributions, you'd have to uncap the payout side, too.

Hobodeluxe: medicare could also be tweaked a bit to make it more solvent.

Tax health benefits for retirees that pay more than Medicare as regular income.

Hobodeluxe: but it's not half the normal federal budget. that would be defense.

It's a little more than half of discretionary spending, which, in turn, is just over half the entire Federal budget. IOW, ~25& of the total for defense. And a not insignificant chunk of that is things like retiree benefits; if you offload all that to the VA, it'd look a lot different.

hurdboy: And probably make it unconstitutional in the process.

*citation needed*

GAT_00: hurdboy: And probably make it unconstitutional in the process.

*citation needed*

You can be absolutely certain it'd be the first thing litigated. It's been a long time since I helped write a brief on it. (and I don't have a copy of LaTeX on a machine anywhere around here to review the final document.....if the ancient CD-R it's stored on is still readable...). Nobody wants to even consider switching to something other than a defined benefit system. Would be bad news for many widows and widowers receiving benefits at their deceased spouse's benefit level. (Unfortunately, I say that with personal knowledge.....)

That said, uncapping the excise tax on the employer would be fine (the so-called "employer contribution"). But that's not what the uncap bobbleheads are talking about when they shoot their mouths off about it.

Gulper Eel: vpb: That's true. We need a single payer health care system so we can get those costs under control.

That's it, let the the people who've done such a splendid job with defense, education and economics call the shots on health care, too.

Better only catch diseases that do well in polls.

There is some bizarre new spin.

Because the for profit corporations running things now are so wonderful, I guess?

Gulper Eel: SurfaceTension: Can't do worse than the for-profit health care insurers have, that's for sure.

Indeed we can do worse - and do.

The guy Obama appointed to run Medicare for the past year or so figured Medicare is wasting 20-30% of its budget. Couple hundred billion dollars a year. This is to be expected in a system biased in favor of paying claims, no matter how wasteful or fraudulent.

As money-grubbing sonsabiatches, private insurers are biased against approving wasteful claims as bad for the bottom line. This causes well-documented trouble, but flipping their model on its head is no improvement.

Single-payer works in nations with strong traditions of honesty and competence in government. You know, like Norway and...and...er.

At least when a private insurer farks people over, I as an evil capitalist can invest in the private insurer and make some money off that. When the federal government farks people over, I as a crony capitalist can make money off it too - but first I have to buy a bunch of legislators and that's shiatloads more expensive than stocks, and then I have to share my ill-gotten gains with Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner even after I bought them fair and square.

Another straw man argument. Just Google "Medicare fraud arrest". If you have any Idea what you are talking about you won't get any results.

It is amazing that anyone would trust their health care to a for-profit industry that is based on insuring only healthy people and avoiding treating sick people.

I wonder if you would want a military which wouldn't fight pre-existing enemies?

WaitWhatWhy: I'm currently working for the military overseas. If you are holding up the US defense organization as an example of a failed goverment program, you are either post-lobotomy, or a cat who got extremely lucky while walking over a keyboard.

But all my nuanced progressive friends of superior intellect and thoughtfulnesss have told me for years what a horrifying bunch of neocon imperialist Bushbot crony-capitalist fraud enablers you are, and how Defense needs a good slashing (while Medicare is just peachy the way it is, and never you mind that it's bleeding like an emo Romanov).

Could they perchance be wrong?

/snark

Any program of sufficient size carries with it the seeds of its own failure, because around it grows a culture of meeting not the goals of the program, but the goals of its bureaucracy and the contractors who make a buck off it. Defense, health care, education...no exceptions.

This is how we get congressmembers waxing melodramatic whenever an obsolete base in their district is slated for closure - they don't look at it in terms of its usefulness to defense. They look at it as a jobs/vote-buying program.