"[Medicare poses] an existential threat to the American way of life." Mike Johnson (Yeah, the one who's Speaker of the House of Representatives.)
James Michael Johnson is a lawyer. There is no reason to imagine he has any understanding of the medical field, and he clearly has a limited knowledge of American government, including the Social Security Administration (SSA) and Medicare.
Medicare was a stop along the way. It is true today, and it has always been true, that the commonest cause of personal bankruptcy in this country is an inability to pay medical bills. There are several reasons for this, and the glaring one is that the medical industry in this country is very considerably overpriced. (Although civilized countries have faced similar problems, and they have instituted universal health care, beaten down costs, and taxed adequately.) When the public had to pay for medical care, the commonest cause of personal bankruptcy in this country was an inability to pay medical bills. When health insurance was devised, the commonest cause of personal bankruptcy in this country was an inability to pay medical bills. When Medicare was conceived, the commonest cause of personal bankruptcy in this country was an inability to pay medical bills. And health insurance and Medicare are sort of forms of savings plans. If you don't pay in, you don't get the benefits. Health insurance relies in part on premiums charged. So, in a way, does Medicare. Medicare, like Social Security, are separate funds (separate from the rest of the government coffer), and people pay into them, with the expectation that they will be repaid, by having these programs pay relevant bills for them, if they live long enough, and if they need the fiscal help. And because they're separate funds, and not part of the government coffer, it does not help the deficit, for example, to reduce, or even eliminate, these expenses/repayments. Does Mike Johnson think that allowing people to have savings plans, and reducing their risk of personal bankruptcy, are an existential threat to the American way of life? I wonder what Mike Johnson thinks the American way of life is. I'm tempted to guess that shooting fish in a barrel represents Mike Johnson's concept of the American way of life. Or maybe it's just his idea of satisfying fun.
Medicare didn't adequately solve the problem, for a collection of reasons, so Barack Obama encouraged the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was only a partial and still inadequate step, and which was met with resistance from the medical industry (which did not want to be challenged for its excesses). And maybe that's Johnson's point. Maybe he favors destructive excesses which most imperil the most disadvantaged, and that's what he believes is the American way of life: that the least advantaged should be the most burdened, in an unnatural and cruel Darwinian way. The American way of life: the rich get richer, and the poor either declare personal bankruptcy or die.
It's clear that Mike Johnson, and many or most other Republicans, don't care about the health or finances of the vast majority of Americans. Caring about that isn't Mike Johnson's idea of the American way of life. Mike Johnson very much wants to run interference (I'm skirting around the term that represents fellatio) for Donnie Trump. In addition, Congressmembers like Mike Johnson happily don't rely on Social Security or Medicare. They have their own scheme. We pay for our health care, in a way that Mike Johnson thinks is an existential threat to the American way of life, and we pay for Mike Johnson's health care, in a way about which Mike Johnson doesn't seem to be complaining. And our responsibility to pay for our own health care still leaves us vulnerable to personal bankruptcy. Happily for Mike Johnson, our responsibility to pay for his health care does not leave him vulnerable to personal bankruptcy.
If all of this seems a bit twisted and somehow unfair, it's far beyond me to disagree.
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