Quote:
Originally posted by ltl/fb
Is the money in elder care because people pay outside of Medicare for extra care, or because of Medicare, a single-payor system?
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Both, really. Medicare effectively subsidizes non-efficient additional healthcare spending by the elderly. (Not that Medicare is that efficient, but you know what I mean.) It adds gov't-program-huge money to the rich-people-with-time-on-their-hands-huge money that would go into it anyway, rather overwhelming the dampering effect of the fact that Medicare does, to some extent, limit the care covered. (Note that the elderly are already the wealthiest demographic group in the country, and are the heaviest over-users* of healthcare.)
*I mean over-users, as in repeated doctor visits for minor ailments, aggressive treatments for non-serious conditions, over-prescription (admitted ultimately the Dr.'s responsibility, but often exacerbated by visits to multiple dr.s, pestering, demands for treatment where none is appropriate because the symptoms are of age not disease**), etc. - they are also the largest users, but their age and comparatively poorer health make that expected.
**Reminds me of a surgeon I know who tells the story of a patient's son who demand all her medical records because he mother had died and he was going to find out who was responsible. The mother was 97. Surgeon (replaced a crown) told the guy "your mother died because she was old" and refused to release the records, fought like hell all the way through court on it. Amazingly, he is still insured; even though he has a rather confrontational attitude that seems to inspire lawsuits, he invariably wins (so far).
