Letter to the Editor: Failing Medicare, Medicaid deserve more attention
Tina Reed’s article (“Health care system feels more strain,” Sunday, Aug.9) about the strains in the local health care system is quite relevant to the current health care reform mantra being broadcast by our deep-thinkers in Washington.
The article mentions the decreasing numbers of physicians accepting Medicaid patients and the ever-decreasing reimbursement rates from the government-originated and -founded Medicare and Medicaid systems.
One hears very little about these two great inadequately funded schemes from the proponents of the “new” Affordable Health Choices Act. I have heard little or nothing about attempts to remedy the problems of these two programs; perhaps there is too little collective wisdom in Washington to tackle these problems. I doubt if the “new” act, if implemented, will end up any different.
But perhaps there is some hope. Rep. Dingell reportedly was not discouraged by the feedback he was getting from his constituents; he went back to Congress vowing to promote the 1,000-page tome that he probably never read (Rep. Conyers said he would sign the bill even though he hadn’t read it!).
However, I watch what they do, not what they say. To my knowledge no one is promoting Obama Care for Washington government employees, nor is Andy Dillon recommending it for his proposed “new” health care solution to save some money for Lansing. Do you think that they know something that we do not?
Arno C. Buhrer, Ann Arbor
Comments
Diagenes
Tue, Aug 18, 2009 : 8:42 p.m.
Rusty, Medicare is funded by the medicare withholding tax and the premium paid by enrollees. It is an example of government inefficiency. High overhead, no management accountability, with little oversight, has created a system ripe with fraud and abuse. Tina Reed's article mentioned the shortage of doctors to treat medicare and medicaid patients. This shortage will get worse if a single payer system is allowed in the U.S. We see this in Canada now. If we add 50 million people to the consumer pool without any cost constraint the system will be overloaded. The result will be long waits for care and poor quality.