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Letter: Medicare for All is a bad idea

FILE - In this April 10, 2019 file photo, a sign is shown during a news conference to reintroduce "Medicare for All" legislation, on Capitol Hill in Washington. The financial condition of the government’s bedrock retirement programs for middle- and working-class Americans remain shaky, with Medicare pointed toward insolvency by 2026. That’s the word from the latest report by the government’s overseers of Medicare and Social Security, which paints a sobering picture of the programs, though it’s relatively unchanged from last year’s update. Social Security would become insolvent in 2035, one year later than previously estimated. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

By Bart Jacobs | The Public Forum
  | May 10, 2019, 6:47 p.m.
| Updated: 7:06 p.m.

In response to the May 6 commentary from Christine Helfrich.

Medicare for All is wrong, for the following reasons:

  • The shortage of doctors in the next 20 years is expected to be 125,000.

  • Canadians have to wait to see a specialist more than nine months on average, and they wind up going to the US to have their surgery performed.

  • There will be long waiting lists to see a specialist. Seniors will not get treatment because younger patients will also be on these waiting lists.

  • The government will set compensation for all doctors/nurses and have stated the pay will be about 40% of what is today’s salaries. Which will further reduce the amount of people who want to become doctors and will go into other fields where they will earn what they thought they would get under the old system.

  • If you want to see how Medicare for All might work, all you have to look at our own veterans system and see just how poorly it is run by the government.

Bart Jacobs, South Jordan

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By Bart Jacobs | The Public Forum