I believe that the current agenda to sell/provide Medicare coverage to 55 to 64 year old Americans will be a step in the right direction. Currently, Medicare recipients are not receiving good health care. I know this, because I have intelligence that the health care industry, judges and deems Medicare recipients to be "lost causes" in regards to the expected overall health of the Medicare recipient. (as written about in "Economics of Health and Health Care, The, 6/E
Sherman Folland
Allen Goodman
Miron Stano")

Currently the way to get on Medicare is to be retired, or disabled. The retired and the disabled are expected to have a lower quality of health, when compared to Americans who work. That means statistically, the overall health of Medicare recipients is marginalized.

If a younger group of Americans is allowed entry into Medicare, perhaps new funds will be allocated to Medicare. I do not believe it would be economically wise to write off this new group of people. To write off the health of 55 year old Americans would mean a drop in the exercise industry, the travel industry, just about any industry that benefits from the purchases of active 55 year old Americans. Because once you lose your health, you don't do things anymore. I know. About the only industries that benefit from me are the television industry and the food industry. Oh, and the pharmaceutical industry.

Also, I believe that if this change occurs, the United States government will pursue ways to lower health care costs for everyone. Through regulation, oversight, and enforcement. Currently the cost of health care equipment and medication is exorbitant. At physical therapy, they use duck-taped phonebooks for artificial steps, rather than paying hundreds of dollars for plastic step-aerobic-steps, that you can purchase as a consumer for around $50.00 (fifty dollars), but they can't because of bureaucracy and red-tape. I'm sure the United States has figured out a way to audit the costs and prices connected with goods. That is...

Unless the American tax payers are still paying hundreds of dollars for hammers and toilet seats for the Defense Department like the New York Times reported in 1986. If that is still going on, maybe the defense department should use gas station bathrooms and rocks for hammers, and Medicare recipients should use a first-aid kit, and a thirteen year old Physicians Desk Reference guide. That would cut costs. Or maybe the GAO will get more funds to develop a system for auditing the cost and price of things one of these days.

If things do not change, then Medicare coverage will remain the same. Which in my opinion is shoddy. Republicans will tell you seniors will suffer and die as a result of a new group joining, my response is if things don't change, they will suffer and die anyway. Would you rather do nothing while people suffer, or would you rather try to eliminate the suffering through change?

I just read an ASCAP newsletter entry about Bob Keane being dead. It linked to this article http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6953775.ece

I'm sure his family doesn't read this blog, or remember me, as I met Bob once at his house when I was 7 or 8 years old. But I still send my heart out to them.

Bob was a real nice guy, and had a way about him, that gave talented artists and musicians hope. I could tell just by the effect he had on my Dad.

If there is a heaven, my Dad is writing songs for Ritchie Valens, Bob Keane is producing them, and Frank Zappa and everybody else is enjoying them.