Medical Parable
How about government-funded automobile coverage for seniors so they can be assured of getting to their doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, therapists, fitness centers, country clubs and other places necessary to their well-being?
Let’s call it the MediTrans program.
MediTrans would cover privately owned automobiles. (There are already government-subsidized taxi and bus services, but many say that it is degrading to force seniors to depend on them.)
Seniors would have a 20% copayment for automobile purchases or leases. The government would pay the other 80%.
Many more seniors would suddenly be able to buy new cars, including safer, luxury models. For example, a senior who had saved $16,000 toward a new car could get an $80,000 Dodge Viper SRT-10, with the government covering the other $64,000. A $26,000 copay would get you a $130,000 Hummer H1 Alpha.
Automakers would ramp up production, and invest in advanced features such as built-in cardiac monitors, defibrillators and GPS-guided automatic driving to the nearest hospital. Meanwhile, dealers would build new and fancier showrooms.
But the government would badly underestimate the costs of MediTrans, leading for calls to hold down spending.
The government would limit how many cars a senior could own, only to find that some were scamming the system by reselling their surplus vehicles at high street prices.
To rein in fraud and abuse, Congress would pass bills. The Oil Dealer Enforcement Act would result in fines and jail sentences for repair shops that used phony invoices to allow seniors to purchase more than their allotted five quarts of oil.
Citizens not eligible for MediTrans would notice that their vehicle and maintenance costs were shooting up. After 40 years, the average cost of a car, in today’s dollars, would be about $150,000.
The above scenario is fictional. But substitute hospitals, doctors and med schools for carmakers and car dealers, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what happened when Medicare started pouring money into the healthcare system.
Who’s to blame? Ultimately, the politicians who created the system. Everyone else responded rationally to the changed market signals created by the Medicare system.
Unwinding these backfiring programs and policies will take decades. Lets hope our political leaders someday respect the constitutional limits inherent in maintaining liberty under the law.
Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D.
Robert J. Cihak, M.D
(Glueck, of Newport Beach, writes on medical-legal and other issues. Cihak, of Seattle, is a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.)
Toshiba Champ
The Toshiba Classic and Newport Beach Country Club crowned a new champion recently, a champion on and off the course. Brad Bryant was the winner of the tourney, on the same day that his younger brother Bart tied Tiger Woods for 20th on the PGA tour at Bay Hill.
I volunteer every year to help out and have fun as I drive the players and their wives around. I was lucky enough to have the assignment of driving Brad and his wife Sue to LAX Sunday night after the event was over. It gave me an insight into two very nice people.
How did Brad celebrate his victory? He called his mom and dad, his two kids and his brother on his way to a red-eye trip home to Florida. He promised to celebrate by taking pizza to his kids and their friends at school.
“After winning this tournament I am still just the second-best golfer in the family,” is the way this classy champion reacted.
His parents watched the kids so Sue could join him for the week. She jumped almost as high as Brad when he sealed the victory.
The PGA Champions Tour and Newport Beach CC couldn’t ask for a classier champion than Brad Bryant.
Ed St. Amour
Mesa Verde
