Medicare faces financial ruin

I learned a lot about Medicare in the last year. A knee replacement (that went south) and an infection I picked up at the hospital enabled me to extend my hospital stay. I was then taken to a recovery center for a total of 52 days before I was able to go home. I am thankful that my teacher’s retirement insurance covered basically everything that Medicare didn’t!

Our country and its Medicare and Medicaid systems are broke and they can’t afford to keep paying such a large percentage of the medical costs!

Medicare paid out $580 billion dollars last year to 48.7 million people. The number of recipients is going to increase each year and the amount paid out for claims will rise as medical costs are steadily climbing.

Do the math: there are some very large claims (like mine) as more seniors are having elective surgeries that are very expensive. During my 52 days I met a lot of nice people who were in their 80s. I personally question if people can be asking Medicare to pay for their elective surgeries.

Seniors must pay more, or Medicare must put restriction on what they will pay for. My two surgeries were not elective.

Gerald W. Ray, Spokane