Sneaking up on universal healthcare

Since the government already has a health care system - Medicare - all federal employees should have Medicare as their health care. No private insurance. We don’t need separate medical program from the federal government. If you qualify for government health care, whether because you work for them or because you need government assistance, you should be on Medicare. Are you a member of the military? You’re on Medicare. Are you retired after your 20 years in the military? You qualify for Medicare. You did a tour in Afghanistan and have a service related injury? You qualify for Medicare. We don’t need the Veterans Administration. Why have two different federal medical programs?

You’re a House representative or a Senator? You’re on Medicare. You work for the State Department or the FBI? You’re President? You’re a Supreme Court Justice? You’re on Medicare. The system is already in place, and you can bet it would get even better if all of those people were on it.

Everyone wants to make the government more efficient, so why are we letting people double dip from both the Veterans Administration AND Medicare? You only need to be on one government healthcare plan. We don’t need two different sprawling bureaucracies.

Medicare works. People are excited about finally getting old enough to be on Medicare. I know people that have their doctor visits and surgeries all lined up after waiting until they’re 65. They finally have healthcare and they’re grateful. All that talk about how you won’t get to choose your own doctor or if you already have a doctor, you’ll have to change if we had universal healthcare? Bullshit. What? Do you think that they bring a whole new set of doctors from somewhere else? It’s the same doctors that were available for all of the other insurance providers. Nearly all doctors accept Medicare.

You know who has to get a new doctor? Someone whose company sponsored insurance changes. I remember when our power plant was bought by Duke Energy. All of the insurance options changed. Because companies are going to go for the cheapest option. That’s how it works.

As more and more people get added to Medicare (and federal employees and military personnel would be a lot of people), we could gradually more towards Medicare for All. Once all of those people are on it, and it works fine, we could lower the age when you get it and give children health care until they’re 18 (or 22, if they’re in college). If we added all of the people who previously were eligible for Medicaid, that would be another group. As time goes on, we could raise the age at which you come off of Medicare as you leave childhood and lower the age at which you go back on it again as you retire.

Eventually, we would be like other modern countries and have universal healthcare for all of our people. What a novel idea!