FREE ESSAY ON THE MEDICARE DEBATE

THE MEDICARE DEBATE

The Medicare Debate 
The U.S. government have denied that Medicare has been going bankrupt. Although the
government may say that Medicare has plenty of money it is untrue because it is a fact
that Medicare will go bankrupt by the year 2001 as stated by preliminary sources.
Medicare is one of the main sources of funding for those people that have no money or
very small amount of money. The community service that was done for this research paper
is hospital volunteering at John Muir Medical Center. The community service included
various jobs that was needed to be done were, Putting items away for nurses, discharging
patients, doing paper work, feeding patients, answering phones, and helping patients when
they ask for assistance. The floor I worked on was Oncology (The branch of medicine that
deals with tumors, including study of their development, diagnosis, treatment, and
prevention). This community service has help me gain insight on the Medicare situation
because I have asked multiple amount of people that work at John Muir Medical Center.
There is a side to be considered about Medicare and Social Security in the government.
The vice president of the United States, Al Gore, wrote in a letter stating that social
security funds are not being depleted. Gore said that, the allegations to the contrary
have been circulated by certain organizations as a money-making scheme for some time.
(Gore Letter). Vice President Gore tries to show theses allegations are untrue by
explaining how social security works. In this letter, Vice President Gore cleared up the
allegations by writing that, When Social Security taxes are collected, they are credited
to the Social Security trust funds with government security, perhaps the safest
investment in the United States.
In history Medicare has experience a few problem regarding it's funding. Problems have
occurred over the history of Medicare. The major problem and most recent of Medicare is
that it is going bankrupt. Medicare is another legacy of Lyndon Baines Johnson Great
Society. Spending is obviously out of control. On June 5th the government announced that
the Medicare Trust Fund would go broke by the year 2001(nationaldebt). In 1965 when LBJ
started Health and Medicare, the Total Federal Spending for the year was $101 Billion. By
the year 2000 we will spend over 4 times than amount on Health and Medicare alone, and
Medicare will equal the annual spending for Defense(CNN). Under our Constitution, Defense
is a specific responsibility of the Federal Government. Medicare is a step-child of our
Liberal/Socialists. You might keep this in mind when we get to the point where we have to
chose what we CAN do versus what we would LIKE to do. By the year 2002 Medicare will have
exceeded defense spending Healthcare has been a problem for the government as well for it
has added to the enormous debt the country already has. Another major problem of Medicare
is that the government does not regulate Medicare enough(Medicare). Medicare affects all
different aspects of different programs. For instance Medicare affects Social Security
(national debt). Social Security has already exceeded Defense spending by almost double.
Just like Medicare, Social Security is being abused. Abused meaning that people take
advantage of it. It is different from Medicare because less people can use Social
Security because it is set aside for the tax payers of this country. The mechanism is
similar to depositing money in a bank. As you know, when a bank accepts a deposit. It
takes that money and uses it for loans and investments in order to provide a positive
return to share holders and interest-bearing accounts. The deposit is credited to an
account, and as long as the account has a positive balance, the bank is obligated to
honor debits to it. In the same way, the trust funds' balances represent and have swerved
as financial claims against the government-claims on which the Department of the Treasury
has never defaulted.... (Gore Letter). This letter written by Al Gore shows the
government side of the issue on Social Security. The government does make it's point in
describing that Social Security is not endanger of losing money or even going bankrupt.
According to Al Gore he mentioned that, Social Security represents an important
commitment to the elderly which must not and will not be abandoned. I assure you that
Social Security has ample funds to continue supporting the programs upon which many older
Americans depend. (Gore Letter). Vice President Gore has given a very good explanation of
why Social Security will not run out of funds. The following shows the explanation that
is given to the public. The dilemma is that most of the public do not want to listen to
what the government has to say about an issue so they take matters into their own hands.

The federal healthcare program for the elderly is a system of checks and balances where
change is expected. The fact that we have something within the next year or so to ensure
that nothing goes bad in the year 2001 or 2002 is expected(CNN1). But the government is
not going to do that by slashing benefits. The reason for the projected bankruptcy is
because Medicare is serving around 37 million people, and costs taxpayers an average of
200 billion dollars a year. Medicare and Social Security account for 34% of the current
federal budget(CNN2). The percentage is expected to rise 5 percent in the next 5 years,
partly because Americans are living longer now a day. Men and women are living about 6
years longer than they did in the 1960's (CNN2). A survey was taken by CNN on the
opinions of people's healthcare plans. On an average people gave their health plan an
average score of a B or better so people were satisfied with their health plan(CNN). 
The community service that I did tied into Medicare and Social Security because I saw a
lot of patients using Medicare. They had a lot of trouble with it sometimes. I did learn
that even if patients do not have Medicare or insurance they will generally still accept
the person into the hospital because the hospital does not have the heart to turn them
away. My volunteering experience at John Muir Medical Center has help me understand
Medicare a lot better because nurses were kind enough to answer all my questions about
Medicare from filling out the form to problems and how they deal with them. 
Medicare will eventually go bankrupt because at the rate that people are using it and how
fast that number is increasing Medicare will be out of funding indefinitely by the year
2001. The only thing that can be done is to raise taxes but that would be impossible
because it is already costing taxpayers 200 billion dollars a year to keep Medicare going
and that is hardly enough to even keep it going(CNN2). In fact that is not enough to keep
it going. 
How to fix Medicare is the greatest challenge. This issue is a very important one that
will eventually come under fire as we approach that year 2001 when Medicare is projected
to go bankrupt. This issue might not be resolved and we could be seeing the end of
Medicare. I this issue will get solved some how the taxpayers will pay Medicare out of
trouble. This reminds me of an experience I had volunteering at John Muir Medical Center.
I was working my shift and I experienced the pain of people that had there Medicare
turned down. I remember seeing how angry patient was as she started to weep. This really
showed the how important Medicare is to people and if that goes down a lot of people will
be left without health coverage. This will cause a lot arguments on the side of the
taxpayers but if the government does pass the bill taxpayers will have no choice. This
solution might get Medicare out of the drain but will it really make people happy? Even
if Medicare fails there will be others behind Medicare like Medicaid, MediCal, Social
Security to help out but losing Medicare will be a major blow to society and U.S. may not
recover from this one for a very long time.