Medicare has the procedure for handling claims; it has the 80%, 20% formula which keeps patient from seeking unnecessary services.
My vote would be:
Our National Wealth is about 58 trillion. A tax rate of 2% should provide sufficint funds. People have become aware that more than half our population is overweight. Both at home and in the restaurants there is an effort to correct this.
If we establish a 1% estate tax, we would have both a more accurate calculation of inflow of funds and the ability to plan ahead. One way to start, would be to gradually lower the eligibility age for Medicare, so that Medicare can train it's personnel to handle the additional patrons. We could see how quickly they can handle it and how we could pay for coverage. Industry would be relieved of the requirement to cover it employees. Our Medicaid expense would be reduced. Our income tax requirements would be reduced.
People paying the estate tax should realize that they will no longer have to pay about 80% of their medical expense.
Ben Podgor
Atlanta, GA.
Revised Sept 7, 2008
Postscript
Those who already have Medicare, because they are 65 years old or older will not be getting any additional benefit if this system were adopted. It would appear proper to give them an allowance against any tax they might be required to pay. It appears that Medicare paid approximately $ ---- per patient. I would suggest that they should get a credit of such amount against any tax they might be required to pay. However, they would not be entitled to a refund if their tax were less than that amount.
Data Sources
1 Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs. A summary of the annual reports.
2 Balance Sheet of Households and Nonprofit Organizations.