and I want to be clear - this means no aid to Ukraine either. We are broke as it is.

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[–] 14 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

Why? Just curious, because I thought the idea was having both systems consolidated under medicare. What's the tangible distinction?

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Not sure, but I think Medicaid pays for more than medicare does. My retired parents still have copays for stuff.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    I could be wrong, but I think your Medicare benefits are still somehow tied to your previous employer. My friend's dad likes to brag about how he paid into some special program that now he has $0 copays, but only if he gets his care at a hospital. As a result, he goes to the ER for everything because he gets free healthcare that way.

    And then he complains about welfare queens and homeless people not knowing how to handle money, and that young people don't want to work and that's why social security is collapsing.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Medicare has been thoroughly fucked with and partially privatized. Medicaid on the other hand is no copay (even on prescriptions), free at point of use, and still privatized, but less so.

    Fundamentally what we actually need is a "federal health insurance corporation" which receives full funding from the federal government to provide single payer health insurance to all citizens and to interface with insurers and payers for healthcare of visitors. Something more akin to the NHS but independent enough that politicians can make them cover something, but can't make them not cover it. Currently we just really don't have anything like that. Though Washington, Colorado, and Nevada do have public option health insurers now.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    What we really need is for taxes to pay for everything health care related. If anyone is found to be making profit beyond their basic salary, they can be fed feet-first into a woodchipper. If anyone wants to start playing ticky-tack games with what should be covered or not, they too can be fed to the woodchipper.

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