Today is the 44th anniversary of President Johnson signing the Medicare bill.  At the time, the cost was projected to be 64 million.    The cost of  medicare spending for just next year is now projected to reach $522,000,000,000.00 or Five Hundred Twenty Two Billion dollars.

John Geyman, a professor emeritus of family medicine at the University of Washington, state: “Medicare on its 44th birthday is remarkably successful. It’s the one solid rock we have in our disjointed healthcare system. It covers 43 million Americans age 65 and older as well as some 2 million disabled people. It is consistently rated more highly than private insurance in terms of reliability and quality of coverage. It provides a comprehensive set of benefits, free choice of providers and hospitals anywhere in the country, and simplified administration with an overhead of only 3 percent — versus administrative overhead and profit-taking five to nine times larger for private insurers.”

After reading that, one has to wonder if he’s been self medicating or volunteering for some other mind altering experiments.  If Medicare has been a success of exemplary proportions, I’d hate to see failure!

From a USA Today article:

A rule of thumb in government is that new programs almost always cost more than politicians predict. So it should come as no surprise that the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit will cost taxpayers more than originally advertised.

When Medicare, the government’s health care system for the elderly and disabled, was first enacted in 1965, lawmakers predicted it would cost $9 billion by 1990. In fact, it cost $67 billion that year.

That was only a $58,000,000,000.00 miscalculation. No big deal, right? With this kind of statistical reckoning, imagine what the bureaucrats will do when calculating your drug dosages or care reimbursements! Yep, we are in good hands with all state…nationally managed care, that is. Not what you thought it would be? Call the President. Maybe he’ll drink a beer in sympathy with you and your circumstance; but don’t hold your breath, especially, if you are elderly.