Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Let’s Put The Government In Charge Of Health Care

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Charles Murray (who by the way co-wrote one of the best histories of Apollo):

You want to know what a Medicare identification card is like? It is a little larger than the standard size for credit cards and driver’s licenses. (Of course. Couldn’t have the federal government make a card that will fit in a stack with all the other cards you use.) It has no magnetic strip. It is plain vanilla text and fonts—no security features whatsoever. It could be counterfeited by a sixth-grader with a scanner. It is made out of flimsy paper that would barely qualify for a really cheap business card. This, for Medicare benefits, for Pete’s sake. It’s pathetic.

Actually, it is shoddy and incompetent, as are so many things that the federal government does.

Let’s hope they’ll stick to making little cars.

5 thoughts on “Let’s Put The Government In Charge Of Health Care”

  1. I agree with your assessment on Murray and Cox’s “Apollo: The Race to the Moon.” Absolutely superb history of the engineering challenges of Apollo and how they were met and mastered. No other Apollo history comes close to the quality of this one.

  2. And a government issued Social Security card is slightly smaller than a standard credit card, is made of paper rather than plastic, has no picture ID, and no magnetic strip.

    Does this suggest that something is basically wrong with Social Security? I don’t think so.

  3. Does this suggest that something is basically wrong with Social Security?

    Well, there is something basically wrong with Social Security. It’s a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff’s.

  4. Does this suggest that something is basically wrong with Social Security? I don’t think so.

    But it does suggest that there’s something basically wrong with how the government runs very expensive programs when they can’t even get the basics right. It wasn’t too long ago that the federal government mandated that states produce identification cards (e.g. drivers’ licenses) that are hard to forge but they don’t do the same thing for Social Security and Medicare cards which can be (and are) used for identity theft, false qualification for benefits, and employment.

  5. There’s no benefit to fraud control, but there is plenty to making sure every voter gets their little piece of squeeze.

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