The Future Of Medicare

There have always been points of contention in the United States, depending on the social, economic and political climate of the nation and the new kid on the block is the contention over Medicare. This resource is heavily depended on by many people from all walks of life and the prospects of a future Medicare don't look too promising for these people. If the political atmosphere is ripe and in line with the powers that be, the next election could easily see the death of Medicare in its present form as major changes and opinions are being debated about this issue long before the election.

There seems to be many experts coming out of the wood work to debate the Medicare issue and most everyone does agree that the current condition of Medicare will make it insolvent and current estimations put it bankrupt in the year 2052. It should be pretty easy to see that the program has a bigger pipe pumping the resources out, than is coming in.

It has been a long time since the flames of debate have divided a political issue such as the medical insurance issue that will surely witness its fair share of debates leading up to the 2012 elections and will have significant influence of the future of Medicare. Politicians on the left favor increased funding for Medicare, but the conservative side of politics think that continue funding is a bad investment of resources and favor private businesses that offer medical insurance programs instead but would need the backing of the public health care system.

Lobbies on both sides of the issue have made their presence known, and both sides have contributed largely to the political campaigns of the politicians that they see as their champions, with private businesses opposed to paying large Medicare benefits through the tax structure being the biggest supporters of many incumbent Senators. The rhetoric towards socialized medicine in the vein of Canada or other developed nations with a central medical health system has begun to die down as many centrist Democrats have yielded on the issue in order to gain the support of Republicans for economic concerns, such as jobs.

Medicare supporters and opponents have multi-generational interests and dividing lines. Many of the young business owners support the demise of Medicare, tend to lean to the right of center, have both expendable income and youthful health. On the other side of the social fence, is the older citizens getting close to or already into the retirement years have less expendable income and much more health issues want to see Medicare continue to help out in the golden years. Both of these people types will find and support many of the more liberal politicians. After the elections and the White House gets involved in the Congressional divide decisions, the decisions shouldn't be too hard to figure out. The current White House Administration leans more to the left and does want to end Medicare as a program, but has cautiously limited their actions to get the matter swing in their direction.