When smirking and laughing Joe Biden talked about Medicare during last night’s vice presidential debate, he used the word “trust.” Biden:
These — look, these guys haven’t been big on Medicare from the beginning. Their party’s not been big on Medicare from the beginning. And they’ve always been about Social Security as little as you can do.
Look, folks, use your common sense. Who do you trust on this?
Kind of reminded me of this Joker bit from 1989′s “Batman”:
And now, folks, it’s time for “Who do you trust!” Hubba, hubba, hubba! Money, money, money! Who do you trust? Me? I’m giving away free money. And where is the Batman? He’s at home washing his tights!
“Hubba, hubba, hubba! Medicare, Medicare, Medicare! Who do you trust?” Good question. Obama and Biden, apparently, would trust government bureaucrats to become efficiency experts. And they would trust medical service providers — doctors, hospitals, researchers — to continue to do what they do for less and less money. Or Washington could pay more — and tax more. There’s no free money.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, on other the hand, believe that choice and competition can provide more value and put the system on a fiscally sustainable path. You know, like in the rest of the U.S. economy .
Hubba, hubba, hubba, who do you trust?
Would it be too much to ask to see the counterfactual? Private health care spending as a % of GDP.
What a dope. Total health care spending has increased 3x relative to GDP since 1965.
@marmico,
A few problems with that being a “counterfactual”. While government expenditures certainly do count in GDP, they’re far from efficient.
Moreover, on the private side, spending per enrollee is a fraction of Medicare and/or Medicaid; plus, much more people are on private insurance than medicare/medicaid.
Also, any increases in the private side are artificially boosted by lower reimbursement rates from Medicare/Medicaid.
I can keep going if you’d like…
I find it funny that politicians always have the same excuse to take over a market: “sure, competition works, but this market is different!”
This excuse has been used in utilities, education, airline travel, and now medical care.
Unfortunately, it simply isn’t true. Competition works. Period. End of story. Every market that is allowed to have competition flourishes. Period.