After the victory in special election in the NY-26, the Democrats have unabashedly decided that they have found the ticket to reclaiming Washington in 2012. Here are a few links to liberal websites stating this fact:

• Democrat Kathy Hochul Wins Upset In NY-26, Medicare Vote Key To Victory 
• New York Special Election: Medicare Will Be Issue of 2012
• David Frum to GOP: In 2012 we’re going to get destroyed for this

Medicare – That’s what they are going with. Really? OK. Where do we begin?

Medicare is a social healthcare program started by Lyndon Johnson back in the 1960’s to provide assistance to the elderly, among others, in paying medical costs, prescription drug costs, etc. 

So, let’s see how that’s working. Medicare costs have skyrocketed since its inception as shown in the following graph entitled Medicare Costs 1967-1997. What started off at $2 billion continually rose till it was over $200 billion. Do realize that was 14 years ago.

The Obama Administration will tell you that they could reign in the costs of Medicare. His plan was to eliminate $500 billion in waste in the Medicare to pay for Obamacare reform. Well, according to Charles Smith, Medicare costs (as of 2008 when Obama first proposed Obamacare) was over $500 billion a year.

“Medicare now costs over $500 billion a year, larger than any expense except Social Security (which is supposedly self-funding via the FICA payroll taxes) and the defense budget (fighting two wars, global war on terror, etc.). The trends are inescapable: Medicare will soon surpass defense spending, and then keep right on going.”

So, according to Obama-math, we can make Medicare sustainable for the long term, pay for Obamacare, all the while saving taxpayers money by eliminating the waste ($500 billion) which is basically equal to the current costs of Medicare.

And he’s supposed to have an Ivy League education??

Only in the government do the numbers not have to add up. So, the same government that does a horrible job at projecting costs tells us it can save money. Let’s see how off they can be. According to the graph titled Actual Costs vs. Estimated Costs Various Medicare Programs, the actual costs of the entire Medicare program was 917% higher than the projected costs at the time it was enacted. 

So, by 2015, each person will pay approximately $13,000 per year for Medicare. Multiply that by 300 million (for a nice easy number) and you get $3,900,000,000,000 per year. But that’s the government estimate which has been shown for the entire program could be off by as much as 917%.

So, let’s keep that as our baseline, and do the math again. $3.9 trillion dollars and increase the costs by 917% which means by 2015 Medicare could possibly cost the U.S. $3,576,300,000,000,000. Obviously, I would love to say that this an extreme result, but it has already happened once. The government can easily repeat this again.

Medicare is an entitlement program which means that it is automatically funded in the federal budget each and every year without debate. The facts are that the program costs have risen dramatically year after year. Government-run programs have been shown to be ineffective, inefficient, and expensive. And according to everyone, Medicare will be bankrupt in the not too distant future!

Once again, this is the issue Democrats want to hang their hat on in 2012?? A program that has failed to provide adequate medical assistance to even just one demographic in our society. Let me know how that works out for you!