Re: Important PBS series in March
From: Joe (forcep@intercom.net)
Sun Mar 9 11:37:53 2008
"If we as retired workers didn't have to worry about end-of-life medical
decisions---" . Then quit demanding CAB's at age 80. What is the figure?
Over 70% of health care spent on those over 70 with life expectency of
less than 10 years? Joe C
BettyTX wrote:
> What is their population versus ours? How long have they had that
> system? How cohesive is the population and what do they see as their
> disparities in their population? Do they have the same class warfare
> mindset as is prevalent in the USA?
>
> It's much easier to do if it is all you know. It is also much easier to
> do on a smaller scale. Regardless of how pretty and utopian it sounds it
> would be a logistical nightmare to implement in the USA because of the
> sheer size of our population. We may end up with a public/private
> system, but I don't believe we will ever end up with a full on public
> system ala Denmark. If by chance we do, I believe it will be long after
> my lifetime.
>
> And no, we can't take it with us, but I would like to leave something to
> my children other than debt and taxes.
> --------------------
>
> --------------------
> All good, logical questions. I agree the logistics of a new system would
> --------------------
> be mind-boggling, but just Part D of Medicare is pretty mind-boggling! I
> figured up our Medicare payments, supplemental insurance payments, Long
> Term Care insurance payments, dental, optical, prescription and doctor
> co-pay and the healthcare exams that our insurance and Medicare do not
> cover and then added that and our taxes to our after-tax income and
> divided it in half, and the result was not much different.
>
> If we as retired workers didn't have to worry about end-of-life medical
> expenses (which can wipe out a pretty hefty estate rather quickly), I
> can see that we probably would leave more to our kids with the 50%
> bracket than with what we have now. I suspect a brand new program will
> have to be implemented in segments over several years. Also, one
> call-in to C-Span said she was a Baby Boomer and she wanted to remind
> people that the Baby Boomers will not live forever and that when that
> generation dies, the population bulge will revert to previous numbers.
>
> Of course, if one remains healthy all of his/her life and has no major
> illnesses and just drops dead suddenly, the current way may leave more
> to heirs.
>
> This message is from a retired person, but one who is even more
> interested in health issues than ever and the policies concerning them:
>
> Betty
|
|
