Medicare

I have one remark from last nights presidential campaign debate in Iowa, and then a comment about the legislation.

1. Someone brought up the fact that Medicare had been originally intended as a safety net. My question then, is this: should it stay a safety net, or become something else (and if, so, what, exactly)?

A safety net is designed to catch someone falling from a problem elsewhere - like, say, not enough retirement income to pay for medical needs. Maybe in order to 'fix' Medicare (reduce associated costs), what is necessary is to improve citizen's retirement savings, and maybe reduce healthcare costs overall[*].

2. According to NPR's Morning Edition, this legislation was roughly 650 pages in length, and fully released (for review) less than two weeks ago.



[*] I can think of a couple things immediately that warrant attention in that case: malpractice suits and insurance, and weighty HMOs.