Medicare isn’t broken
I just don’t understand the inability of the two parties to come up with a solution for Medicare. Medicare works. It isn’t broken. It doesn’t have to go private, and payments to providers don’t have to be diminished.
The problem is inadequate revenues. So raise the rate of taxation. It has been at 2.9 percent for years. There is no premium for Part A. Charge one based on income. Adjust the Part B premium based on income. Some have suggested copays for those with Medicare supplement policies, again based on income.
This is an idea that should be explored.
I have been on Medicare for 11 years. Before that, I dealt with Medicare for my aged parents. The system works. It works well. Don’t change its fundamentals.
— Marvin S. Helfand, Northbrook
Change Medicare
The Medicare program is popular with recipient seniors. How could it not be? We pay approximately 25 percent of the cost of comparable coverage. The balance is deducted from current workers’ checks and corporate bottom lines. Also, citizens eligible for Social Security disability benefits are also covered by Medicare, a fact not shared openly with the general public. Fraud abounds in this program.
Be it four, seven or 10 years, the status quo is not sustainable.
Solutions abound. Increase taxes on current workers and companies; increase the eligibility age gradually; allow insurance companies to compete for our business; skewer the frivolous plaintiffs and their attorneys; allow premium subsidies to become asset sensitive and remove government-mandated Cadillac coverage.
The slippery slope of government bureaucrats and civil servants taking over not only the health insurance industry but also the entire health care delivery system is truly frightening to me.
— John E. Brosius, Naperville
Ryan’s plan
In the Aug. 17 Page 1 analysis, “No easy cure for Medicare maladies,” the author states that the Romney/Ryan plan to reform Medicare is “the biggest gamble since it was created nearly a half century ago.”
I say not reforming Medicare is the biggest gamble.
The program is heading over a cliff. Since 2008 it has spent more than it has taken in and the “trust fund” is expected to be empty by 2024. With more and more baby boomers reaching 65, these negative trends will only get worse.
Serious underestimation of the program’s cost has been endemic since it passed in the 1960s.
I don’t know if Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan is the best one. I only know he is the only politician brave enough to say that the emperor has no clothes.
Democrats will continue to run commercials showing Ryan pushing grandma off a cliff in her wheelchair. Their demagoguery on Medicare will continue as long as it is successful in winning elections. They will happily whistle while Washington’s fiscal house burns down as long they can stay in power.
— Jay Fisher, Lisle
Medicare gamble
Reforming Medicare would be a gamble, as the Tribune writer says, but it’s not as big a gamble as was the creation of Medicare. Medical costs have soared since the creation of Medicare, and even the Medicare trustees say the program will soon go bust.
The reform-Medicare bet could not be a bigger loser than the create-Medicare bet.
— Steve Stanek, McHenry
Preying on seniors
The cost of medicine is continuing to rise due to advances in science and technology creating a situation where it is not possible to do everything for everybody. The medical community already has a term for situations similar to this called triage, where it does the most good for the most people with the limited resources available.
The free market has not solved our cost problems as socialized medicine in other countries provides greater good for less money, as evidenced by longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality and a smaller share of national GDP consumed.
As for the Paul Ryan plan of ending Medicare as we know it and putting seniors on a voucher system to shop for private health insurance, many seniors already suffer from cognitive impairment, poor judgment, and hearing and vision problems, making it difficult or impossible to read or understand the many pages of fine print and legal details similar to a mortgage or credit-card agreement. Indeed it would be prudent to hire legal counsel to go over health care contracts before signing expensive agreements.
This voucher system could be a windfall for the insurance and legal community similar to the mortgage mess by preying on and fleecing seniors in their most vulnerable years.
— Thomas Cechner, Lockport
Unhealthy Americans
While I agree with Tribune columnist Steve Chapman in “Ryan’s unwelcome Medicare realism” (Commentary, Aug. 16), he doesn’t address the American people’s role in the ever-increasing cost of health care. Certainly a health system for a country in which a quarter of the population is obese (not to mention the millions more who are greatly overweight but not yet classified as obese) and a fifth are smokers will go bankrupt far quicker than if those numbers are significantly reduced. Yet neither Obamacare nor Romney/Ryan-care address this issue because they don’t want to offend potential voters.
Banning soft drinks and demonizing fast-food and tobacco companies will not work and run counter to our free market system.
The best and fairest way to lower future avoidable health care costs is to use the principles of capitalism. After a reasonable phase-in period, say one year, Medicare and health insurance companies should charge higher premiums, even in group plans, to smokers and the obese.
Let us choose whether we want to continue our unhealthy ways, but make us pay the extra costs.
— Harry Kramer, Glenview
Benefits of breast-feeding
As a pediatrician for more than 30 years, I was very interested in Tribune columnist Steve Chapman‘s “New York says: Breast-feed or else” (Commentary Aug. 5). He very appropriately warns against New York’s breast-feeding campaign from taking on a “judgmental and punitive edge.” The same advice could be rendered to pediatricians and to society itself.
But Chapman does his readers a disservice when he tries to downplay medical research supporting the benefits of breast milk. According to a recent executive summary from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the risk of hospitalization for lower respiratory-tract infections is reduced 72 percent if infants are breast-fed exclusively for more than four months. Ear infections are reduced by 50 percent and gastrointestinal infections by 64 percent.
Breast-feeding significantly reduces the incidence of asthma, leukemia, Type 1 diabetes, celiac disease and inflammatory bowel disease in children. Not only does breast-feeding greatly reduce childhood obesity, it is also associated with a 30 percent reduction in adolescent and adult obesity.
Chapman is quite correct in saying that big-city mayors should not mandate how mothers feed their babies. And no mother should ever be made to feel guilty for her choice. But pediatricians, nutritionists and other medical professionals have an obligation to ensure that all potential mothers, and society itself, realize the remarkable benefits of breast-feeding.
— Dr. Bruce Bedingfield, Hoffman Estates
Biomedical research
As a doctor who treats children with blood diseases and cancer, I am most familiar with biomedical research. Prior generations have had the foresight to invest in research and this investment has paid off handsomely. Because of this investment, I am able to assure a family that a baby born with sickle cell disease has a hopeful future or that a child with newly diagnosed leukemia can potentially be cured.
We continue to lead the world in the biotechnology industry, which is now a major driver of our economy.
We now find support for biomedical research being held hostage to the ongoing political struggle and devastating cuts in the National Institutes of Health and other agencies that support research.
I believe we should ask candidates to take a break from attack ads, fundraising and interviews long enough to publicly state their support of our nation’s investment in innovation, scientific research in general and biomedical research in particular. Biomedical research is vital to the future of country and our community and needs to be supported irrespective of who wins the election.
— Dr. Alexis A. Thompson, hematology section head, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, professor of pediatrics, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago
Hero physician
This is in response to “Doctor’s fee is still $5; Beloved by a small Illinois town’s residents, this 87-year-old physician hasn’t changed his price since the 1970s” (Page 1, Aug. 21), by Tribune reporter Colleen Mastony. This article, about Dr. Russell Dohner, really moved me.
It’s refreshing to know there are still real-life heroes in unknown places, around the most inconspicuous corner or town. Now he’s known, thanks to your piece. And rightfully so.
Dr. Dohner doesn’t seem like the type of guy who needs or vies for press, but I’m sure he’d be happy to know that, with the publicity brought forth from your article, his story made people all over Chicagoland feel a little better.
— Jody Grimaldi, Woodridge
