Medicare on my Mind.

No matter what work you did, even if you worked for yourself, you probably contributed to Medicare, knowing that in your senior years, when you needed health care the most, the program would guarantee that major hospitalization and surgery bills would be paid off.  You couldn't anticipate how sick or feeble you'd become after a certain age, and even if you owned the farm, and the implements to operate it, you could never know how your health might bankrupt the family business.

Medicare has been around for a long time because people have seen its usefulness and are willing to maintain it. 
The program, however, is becoming costly.
All of our medical expenses are becoming out of control.

Medicare doesn't even cover all the expenses seniors face when their health is poor.
Most seniors purchase additional insurance, Medigap, to cover anything that Medicare doesn't cover.

So, how much of seniors' income is spent on medical expenses?
A big wallop!

Premiums for Medigap and Medicare Part B and D (these are newer parts added in the last few years to expand the coverage of the original Medicare that covered only major medical) and dental coverage, can be as much as half of the Social Security Benefit payments seniors receive.

In other words, medical costs are out of control. And yet, we are still fighting each other on how to deliver medical coverage to people without bankrupting them.

You say we can't afford these benefits?
I say, we can't afford not having these benefits.
We need to figure a way to contain costs and to insure everybody, so that in the richest country in the world people don't die of diseases and poor care.  Our infant mortality is one of the poorest among developed countries. 

How did we let that happen?
Now, we're proposing cutting benefits, or curtailing them for seniors.
Our senior mortality will be the poorest in the world.
Not really what we want is it?