According to the Commonwealth Fund survey on Medicare, beneficiaries indicated they were overall more satisfied with their health coverage. They felt they had better access to care and fewer problems getting their bills paid. This was compared to findings from people in employer-sponsored plans.

Wendell Potter on Bill Moyers Journal

The US government via Medicare provides health care benefits to millions of Americans every day and does so with only 3% for overhead. Health care companies also provide health care benefits to millions of Americans, but they do it with something like 30% for overhead. Wendall Potter in an interview with Bill Moyers described how the health insurance industry “has hijacked our health care system and turned it into a giant ATM for Wall Street.”

In addition to being more efficient, people enrolled in Medicare like it better than private health insurance. So what is Medicare? Basically, it is a single payer system for people over the age of 65. Look, we’re all going to spend money on health care. Doctors in private practice and hospitals get paid by either Medicare or private health insurance companies. Or individuals. Medicare was put into law in 1965 and is partially financed by payroll taxes. In addition to paying for health care services for people over the age of 65, it also pays for some of the training of medical residents (our country’s future doctors).

It’s true that the cost of Medicaire is increasing. Some of this is attributed to the aging population. Some of this is also true because not enough prevention-oriented services are available to people in their youth. Chronic diseases such as diabetes should be well managed (or prevented) at a younger age as a way to reduce overall health care costs. But with 46 million uninsured in our country, it is evident that a lot of people are not getting needed preventive-type care now. Providing a public option for people to buy into a program like Medicare when they’re younger can help keep people healthier when they are younger, thus reducing the overall costs of health care in the future.