Poll: Medicare should be for everyone
A new poll shows a majority of Americans believe Medicare should be expanded to include everyone. More than half of respondents are even willing to pay more taxes for the coverage. Danielle Karson reports.
The cover of a Medicare booklet (Jeff Topping/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Steve Chiotakis: There's a new poll that shows a majority of Americans believe Medicare, the government-funded health plan for the elderly and disabled, should be expanded to include everyone. Danielle Karson has more.
Danielle Karson: The survey by marketing group Caravan found that 6 out of 10 Americans favor giving anyone the option of signing up with Medicare.
Jaime Court: That shows the president there's strong popular support for an ambitious public option to the private market as he's developing his health care plan.
Jamie Court heads up Consumer Watchdog, which commissioned the survey. He says the findings are timely.
Kathy Cassidy from Raleigh, North Carolina, sees families in her kids' school cutting back on health care as the recession deepens.
Kathy Cassidy: I think the whole idea of widening the safety net a little bit is very important. I think a lot more people now really do now need that extra help.
In fact, the survey found that 55 percent of Americans are willing to pay more taxes for Medicare coverage.
But not everyone likes the idea of a national health plan. Kim Larson used to live in New Brunswick, Canada. She says there, doctors' visits were a constant exercise in waiting.
Kim Larson: My sister waited several months to see what is considered a specialist, which was really just an ob/gyn. And my grandfather had a stroke and he waited for two hours before a doctor saw him.
A Congressional Budget Office study says that if younger, healthier people sign up with Medicare, that will drive down costs and could save a trillion dollars over 10 years.
In Washington, I'm Danielle Karson for Marketplace.
Comments
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From TX, 03/04/2009
Some doctors in our area are dropping Medicare patients and some are not accepting new Medicare patients. The thing that really bothers me about a single payer system is that rationing of health care is bound to happen.
From Mesa, AZ, 02/15/2009
Nothing is really perfect. Overall I believe that Medicare is the best plan,not as it is now, but with needed improvements. All working people should pay into it every month.
Something needs to be done about the Pharmaceutical companies buying Generic
companies. The shortage of doctors is causing long waits and, until that is solved, we must be patient.
From Chicago, IL, 02/13/2009
There are many, many reasons that an expansion of Medicare beyond its current entitlement boundaries is an oversimplification of a massive problem.
Comparing the US to other countries ignores the problems we have in our country with tort reform. Insurance costs and payouts to trial lawyers create significant overhead to practice in the US.
What happens when a person needs care that the government doesn't cover? Medicare isn't exactly progressive in its support of controversial treatments that may offer hope for ailments in the future.
Americans want the best available healthcare, and they want it now. A single payer system of this scale seems unlikely to result in the best and fastest possible care.
With big pharma deep in the pockets of Washington, we have little hope of fair drug practices. As long as lobbyists and the corporations that control them influence our democratic process, it will be difficult to create a system that is fair to every person it is supposed to care for.
From Plano, TX, 02/13/2009
Amen, let anyone who wants to opt-in to Medicare, especially good for those of us who at 50 to 55 were offered "early retirement" and no health care. It's impossible to get affordable coverage for a diabetic and in Texas getting into the state pool takes months of processing. There is NO community clinic for low cost care and the cost of insulin alone is prohibitive. Being able to get into a Medicare type program would be great even if we had to pay at least it wouldn't be 1200 a month for a "savings" plan that gives you a discount (ha) on the medications.
From burbank, CA, 02/13/2009
As a tourist I can get any level of medical care in Europe free of charge,yet in the US 45million of Americans have no health care. What shame for a country such as ours.Health care should be a right provided to all of a country's citizens.
From Malibu, CA, 02/12/2009
I added this comment to the end of my complaint filed about a year ago regarding double taxation. However, this complaint fits with this subject. The medication I take to stay alive costs $12,000/month. I work for myselve, and responsibly bought a million dollar health insurance policy in the eighties. It cost $250 a quarter to cover myself and my two children. I now pay over $3,000 a quarter for just myself. Because of the cost of my medication, I have two years of medicine left--which means I have two years of life left. The company, Cephalon, who makes the medication that takes up over $11,000 of the $12,000 was--not too many years ago--charging about $600/month for what costs $11,000/month now. Many people are being denied this medication by their insurance companies because of the cost of it. There is nothing like it, or nothing close to it (otherwise we'd be using that). Can't something be done to regulate the price of pharmaceuticals? This is outrageous. There are certain things nobody should be denied--and life-saving medication is one of them. The details are very personal and I don't want to go into all of them here -- but everything I'm saying that be verified. Also, the medication that's costing me $12,000 was costing me $24,000 a month because one pharmacist had doubled the price. It was only a year ago I found Cinergy and CVS--and between the two of them, they lowered the price. If it weren't for the pharmacy Better Value, I would have another two to three years left of life. Please understand I'm not just speaking for myself: I'm speaking for many people who haven't found their voice, and are being affected worse than I am. I get two more years. Some of them aren't getting any time, at all.
It is immoral, robbery, blackmail, and a crime what Cephalon is doing. I have called them and complained--they thank me for calling. The medication went generic--Cephalon bought the generic rights. So the generic medication is just slightly less expensive than the brand medication. (I take the generic.) I have been rated "totally disabled" yet this medication allows me to continue to work. I wasn't looking for Social Security; I was looking for Medicare--but I doubt that they would pay for this medication. We need to go deeper than making Medicare available to people. We need to make medication available to people--appropriate medication and physician/hospital care.
When I write about it, all I can do is cry. I have a lot of work left to do. I don't know how much life I will have left to do it in. I don't want a free ride. I want to stop being robbed and I want pharmaceuticals to be part of a healing industry, not a "holdup" gang of thieves.
Thank you for listening.
Melody Beattie
From New Orleans, LA, 02/12/2009
That bit at the end with the random lady from New Brunswick was pretty weak. Has anyone at Marketplace seen a doctor lately?
02/12/2009
I believe we should institute a flat tax like almost other other country in the world. Let it pay for everything, health care, pharmaceuticals, infrastructure, in a word everything. No more IRS, everybody pays for for what they have. Got a multi-million dollar house, boat, car, all taxed at the same rate.
From WA, 02/12/2009
I'd be all for Medicare-for-all, if all doctors accepted it, if it covered vision and dental and hearing aids and orthotics, if it covered anything besides catastrophic illness unless you pay about $100/month extra for Part B. Yep, it costs us disabled/seniors almost 100/month for the privilege of going to outpatient doctors who will accept new Medicare patients - who are woefully few and often far away. And those who accept us send us a bill, Medicare never pays the whole thing.
All we paid for, it seems, all those decades we worked, was catastrophic coverage. Medicare has been decimated. Fix it first, then I'll recommend it.
The fact is community clinics and county hospitals have saved most of us from total incapacity when we weren't "emergency" patients. Millions of elderly and disabled are without glasses, hearing aids, and teeth - with Medicare. If you move, you probably won't find a doctor, you'll have to rely on community clinics.
Medicaid, which also often doesn't cover the above, requires about a 14-pg application plus supporting documentation in most states - even when you're obviously disabled. Upon approval, Medicaid makes an automatic payment of Medicare Part B's 100/month, and pays at least part of the bills Medicare doesn't cover.
The states are supporting a federal health program that doesn't serve an increasing number of patients - or at least it lets doctors refuse to take new patients with Medicare. If we go to Medicare for all who want it, will those doctors be forced to accept it? Will office visits still require Part B, and will the states have to pay for B for all who can't afford it?
From Chico, CA, 02/12/2009
The media takes one (possibly unfounded) instance of negative experience (the Canadian woman commenting about her sister) without countering it with hundreds of positive experiences by Canadians. AND, the reporters ignore the fact that Canada spends a fraction of what U.S. spends on health care. Thus, waiting lines WHICH WE ALSO HAVE.
The U.S. spends the world's highest dollar on health care in the most inefficient system resulting in uninsured citizens and bankruptcy for many.
If we use Canada's model (Medicare for all) to fund U.S. health care, we truly would have the world's best system. Instead, we spend our money on paperwork, all in the name of job creation.
Marketplace, there are many sources of facts that you could have included in your mini-comments on such a profoundly important issue.
From Chico, CA, 02/12/2009
I regret that you let one comment from a former Canadian's experience on health care color this story. It is very typical of media, unfortunately NPR included, to use one tangential comment to bias or refute an entire body of knowledge and facts. Stop it please.
From Los angeles, CA, 02/12/2009
MEDICARE FOR ALL IS THE BEST POSSIBLE HEALTHCARE PLAN FOR THE COUNTRY. BUT REAL MEDICARE. NOT THE CONVOLUTED BILL WEAKENS PRESCRIPTION DRUG BENEFITS THAT WAS PASSED UNDER BUSH. THE MIDDLE MAN MUST BE REMOVED IF THERE IS TO BE REAL UNIVERSAL COVERAGE. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. INSURANCE COMPANIES DON'T BELONG IN HEALTHCARE.
From San Francisco, CA, 02/12/2009
Hooray! What a common-sense way to provide healthcare to more Americans: let everyone who wants to get coverage by paying a premium to Medicare through their payroll taxes. Economist Jane Bryant Quinn says Medicare's overhead is 1% in contrast to 13% in the for-profit healthcare market. Let those who want to keep their for-profit health care insurance. That way we could cover all Americans.
From Fremont, CA, 02/12/2009
No-way.. Medicare needs to be overhauled and the Presidential spending plan needs to pulled back. the only succesful way to energize the economy to pay for widened social programs is to cut pay roll, and capital gains taxes.. you got to give a little to get a little, or smother the economy.. read the book, Meltdown.
From Portland, OR, 02/12/2009
For the 70% of insured Americans now in HMO's, long waits for specialists is not any different than what Kim Larson mentions for New Brunswick, a small Canadian province of 750,000 (i.e., the population of downtown St. Louis). And anybody who has read the news in the last year, if not five, knows that a two hour ER wait is not unusual in the US anymore.
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