I can't picture handing any 80 year old person a voucher...

[Playinghardball]

[glowing]

1. I really wish they would change to "Coupon Care". Its so much more relatable to

people in the real world who actually use coupons. You get a coupon and get to shop that wonderful insurance market.

On the other side of the coin, if we all know its so awful for elderly, why is it so wonderful for the rest of us to "shop" for?

I know, eventually, we will get our "leaders" to pass a bill that most people support. 80% of this country wants a medicare for all type of system and F the insurance leaches. Let them die away, instead of people.

[CTyankee]

2. I like the term "Medicare allowance." It implies limitations. Coupon sounds like a bit of

an extra, like I clip coupons to save a few cents here and there on stuff I buy at the supermarket. "Allowance" sounds limiting...here's your "pittance."

[annabanana]

3. Simple, easy to understand and, best of all,

true.

[JBoy]

4. Looking forward to Joe taking on Eddie Munster.

[jody]

5. I can't picture letting kids less than 65 vote. So there! nt

[loyalsister]

6. It would come in the form of a swipe card

What would it be called??

Senior Life Extension card...

[JaneyVee]

7. Wouldn't it be INSANELY expensive for an 80yr old to buy private insurance???

[former-republican]

11. It would be off the charts without medicare covering 80% of the cost

[L0oniX]

8. A voucher might as well be a lotto ticket.

[nolabear]

9. My 87 y.o. mil is smart as a whip. She is also nearly deaf and going blind.

She hates every minute of it, but we are working hard to give her the ability to read and use the computer while she still can. Can you imagine what it would be like if she was told to "go find yourself some insurance"? Sure, she has us to help, but so many people don't.

As a mental health practitioner I deal with insurance companies every day. Believe me, their purpose in life is to figure out how not to pay you, how to find paperwork problems,to challenge diagnoses, to second guess treatments and to place caps on anything they can. The toughest patients and practitioners often give up on treatment. How elderly, physically and mentally diminished people are supposed to stand up against that determination to deny benefits is beyond me, and if we accept a voucher system for our elders in this country we are in effect abandoning them to a system whose first loyalty is to their profit line.

Let's not do that, okay? VOTE.

[elias7]

10. ...and having them cough up an additional $6,000-$12,000/yr more to cover premiums

90% of a person's lifetime health care expenditures occur in the last years of life, including severe illnesses, frequent hospitalizations and long drug lists. Insurance companies can't afford to insure the elderly, they would lose too much money, which is why medicare came into being in the first place.

Ask all these gop-idiots how they would plan to pay for their own health insurance once they retire...

[tavernier]

12. Seriously, I threw away my first medicare card.

When I reached "that age" I got so much crap in the mail having to do with Medicare, both from the government and also from hawkers of private programs, that I accidentally tossed out my official card. The problem is that every advertiser trying to sell something these days is allowed to stamp "Official" or "Formal" or whatever they wish on the envelope. It truly is confusing, not to mention embarrassing when you have to call for a new copy.

[GreenStormCloud]

13. Not all old folks are senile.

First, I totally disagree with any voucher plan. But I have also known some really sharp old folks. I once knew a 90 yr old lady who played the stock market and consistently made money. I once knew another 85 year old lady who excerised daily on a treadmill and was the main secretary at the small business where she worked.

I am a senior citizen myself and I think my mind and my wife's (Also a senior) mind is still pretty sharp. She loves to work the daily sudoku before breakfast, solving the hardest ones in less than a half-hour.

[nolabear]

14. Read my post upthread. It's not all mental capacity by any means.

This is hard, hard stuff, and it doesn't improve. "Senior" can mean a 40 year span. Bodies need help in those years and insurance companies are champs at not providing that help.

Good luck to you and your wife. I'm not too far back there myself, and I want precedents set as fast as humanly possible!

[GreenStormCloud]

15. Insurance companies would refuse me over pre-existing conditions.

And they would be right to do so. It would be like me walking in off the street with a claim in my hand and demanding the claim be covered. I don't hate the health insurance companies. (I know, you didn't say I did. I have drifted off topic a bit.) They are caught in a difficult situation. Health coverage by the government or all people is the only real answer. Then the insurance companies would be free to cover the rest of the things that they do well, such as Life and Property.

Somebody needs to grab the bull by the horns and offer something like Medicare for everybody, with strong fraud control. I think that much of the political problem is that most of the legislators, both Democrat and Republican, don't understand the problem well enough to explain it to the average American.