Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/808722
"Ifitsavesmemoneyandeveryonehascover- age, I have no problem with it." Not a surprising response to the idea that Presi- dent Trump might embrace Democrats lobbying for a "Medicare for All" universal health care plan. "I'macontractor.I'maRe- publican," the caller offered on my radio program. Okay, so that part was a sur- prise. A safety net for disabled Americans and people over 65 years old, you pay a little in and you get health insurance coverage.Want more coverage?Buy a Medicare sup- plement policy. Medicare polls well, too, though most Americans do re- alize it's a strain on the federal budget.What they may not know is just how much of a strain that is. Already 15 percent of the fed- eral budget and rising, Medicare is getting more expensive ev- ery year. Looking at how it's currently funded, adding to the exist- ing 57 million people on Medi- care would mean taxes and pre- miums are going to have to in- crease. While researchers' percent- ages vary, supporters like to point out that administrative costs of Medicare are from 2 to 5 percent of expenses, while the private insurance sector pays about 17 percent of expenses on administrative costs. One might think this is a good reason to broaden Medi- care, except for a couple of re- alities. Much of Medicare's admin- istrative burden is handled by other agencies, and studies have shown that when all costs are factored in, Medicare actually costs more to administer than private insurance. Keep in mind, private con- tractors already manage Medi- care in most parts of the coun- try, including the supposedly in- efficient administrators at Cigna and Blue Cross. Also, the liberal AARP re- cently published a report stating Medicare is the victim of over $60 billion in losses to fraud. That's $60 billion. With a "b." Adding millions more Amer- icans would mean hiring more administrative staff to chase down even more fraud... or not. There's another serious prob- lem with Medicare — It's just about $33 trillion in debt. That's $33 trillion. With a "t." The U.S. mint "only" prints eight million, notes a day with a face value around $540 million. Since 95 percent of the notes printed each year are used to re- place notes already in circula- tion, that means "only" 27 mil- lion, 50,000 of that is "new" money.Just to print enough bills to cover that $33 trillion, the mint would have to buy enough printers to crank out 121,996 times more bills. Maybe they could get a deal on Craigslist. The bottom line is the bot- tom line. There is no perfect sys- tem, even though proponents claim universal healthcare, like the National Health Service in the United Kingdom, is perfectly peachy. The NHS isn't peachy at all. It's failing. Over 3.5 million patients are on waiting lists for doctor vis- its, treatments and surgeries, in- clude very serious, life-saving operations. Imagine if89.9 per- cent of patients in the United States were waiting at least 18 weeks for life-saving surgeries and medical treatments. Even worse, about 45 per- cent more British patients die in U.K. hospitals than U.S. pa- tients do here. There's already talk of privatizing health care in the U.K. as Parliament squirms to raise taxes and considers a new "special" tax just for health care. Hundreds of doctors' of- fices have been shuttered, and there's mind-numbing debate over eliminating some coverage, such as pain meds. Their perfect universal health care plan isn't just broke, it's ter- minally ill, collapsing from an estimated $3 billion deficit.. So, the government NHS panels try to save money by simply redefin- ing what is necessary for your health care and what isn't. Patients are waiting months for surgeries and necessary pain meds may soon be... not so "nec- essary." Medicare for all. What could possibly go wrong? RickJensenisDelaware's award-winning conservative talk show host on WDEL, streaming live on WDEL.com from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. local time. Contact Rick at rick@wdel. com, or follow him on Twitter @ Jensen1150WDEL. RickJensen What could go wrong with Medicare for all? Cartoonist's take Rather than report the per- fidy of your President, week af- ter week, and although the merry month of May is yet to be upon us, why not talk of romance? Of romance 50 or 60 years ago? Sound like a plan? However, the missus — aka she who must be obeyed — who passes judgment of first drafts of my columns, feels that such recounting of past performance involving con- senting adults of a bygone era may not be appreciated by to- day's enlightened readers who would not take kindly, for ex- ample, to tales of seduction. In fact many readers of advanced age, may have long memories, and it would be a disservice to name names and recount pecca- dillos that might embarrass one and all. The problem of writing about our fair city, fact or fiction, is that skeletons would proba- bly come out of closets. In the old days, a young woman might have to "be visiting her aunt" in some far off city for 7 or 8 months, and thereby hide her advancing pregnancy. Yet today, people live together, and what develops thereafter is of little concern in our more permissive society. In any case, when dis- cussing romance of years ago, it is best to only allude to cer- tain assignations. Check that. Best to allude to it not at all for such pursuits, described in lu- rid detail, might have lasting ef- fect on the participants. Of this, I guess, we will never know, but recounting such activities by the gossip set at bridge games over the years, have certainly added spice to their discussions as op- posed to basketball tournament outcomes. Therefore we shall omit tales of dalliance and romance, and never mind. So ends this writ- er's failed attempt to provide non political reports of romance in years past. Not, perhaps, of great import, but it certainly was enough to set tongues wag- ging so many years ago. I was planning to include them in a book about our old home town, but discretion is the better part of valor and such tales have to season until the participants are long in their grave. If any of the foregoing ap- pears to be not PC, please con- sider it only locker room talk as did one letter to the editor writer when his current Presi- dent's "grabbing" conduct was dismissed as merely just men talk. Ooops. Just got political again. ••• I regret to see our Public Works Director Gary Antone de- part. I first encountered him many years ago when he was working for Sharrah-Nolta En- gineers and sharing his knowl- edge with a fledgling real estate person entering the field back in 1976. I hope he lands a job not subject to outcry from landown- ers who protest their holdings are being usurped by local gov- ernment. ••• The Wednesday columnist writes of dogs, which is good, However, he writes of "stupid dogs," which is a great disservice to our bow wows. He wrote of an incident whereas a dog was tied to a lawn chair while his mother left it unattended while she an- swered a phone in her house. I have to side with the dog in this case. It is not prudent to leave a pet tied to an easily dragged lawn chair regardless of size. My motto is never tie a pet to an object that you, the pet owner, can drag. Even if your pet is basket size, just don't do it. I have found logging chains of not less than 12 feet long best to secure the pet. Anything less is inviting trouble. Case closed. ••• The baseball season is finally upon us and to witness a highly paid closer, a pitcher paid the big bucks to, in the ninth inning, fail to hold the lead his team has placed on the scoreboard, is un- fortunate but not the end of the world. Next time he will be more cautious and not let one pitch hang in the air like a possible Su- preme Court nominee. ••• On a more somber note, a great retired friend and his wife has been forced to vacate his home for many years and take up residence in a care facil- ity in another town. I think he would be reluctant to make such a move. Drat it all. ••• Jean Barton's interesting and factual column recently dis- cussed the well known Roney Land and Cattle Company, which was a big operation when we had the meat plant many years ago. However, her article contained an unfortunate line: "This ranch has evolved from a large farm and livestock operation with many employees to a medium- sized ranch run by Wally and Billie Roney. Wally's two grown children see no future in raising cattle at this time." Tsk, tsk. ••• Great line in Will Durst's col- umn: "The group switched its name from "Tea Party" to "Free- dom Caucus" because they are fighting for the freedom of all Americans to die without gov- ernment intervention. To them, compromise isn't just a dirty word, it is a hanging offense. Even with a rope strung around their own necks, they are as res- olute as glue footed moths on a porch light." ••• A man came home from church sporting two black eyes. His wife asked "What hap- pened?" "Well, I was sitting in the church and I noticed a woman sitting in front of me had her dress sticking in her crack. So I reached over the pew and pulled it out, but she turned around and hit me." "But you have two black eyes," said the wife. "Well, I figured that must have been how she wanted her dress, so I put it back. Robert Minch is a lifelong resident of Red Bluff, former columnist for the Corning Daily Observer and Meat Industry magazine and author of the "The Knocking Pen." He can be reached at rminchandmurray@ hotmail.com. I say Love, your magic spell is everywhere Much of Medicare's administrative burden is handled by other agencies, and studies have shown that when all costs are factored in, Medicare actually costs more to administer than private insurance. Sounding off Alookatwhatreadersaresayingincommentsonourwebsiteandonsocialmedia. Thisissuchawonderfuleventthatasa young girl I participated in and later my children. This creates memories that last a lifetime. Thank you Red Bluff Kiwanis. Sharon Wilkes: On the annual Red Bluff Kiwanis Easter Egg Hunt held Saturday The tree needs to be gone to the le of the pull out onto main. Blocks my vision. Nancy Kunau: On a Main Street collision near the intersection with Cedar Robert Minch StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 2060 Talbert Drive, Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 895-4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 ForestAve.,Ste.110,Chico95928, 530 879-7424, senator.nielsen@ senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558- 3160, governor@governor.ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393-0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, 501 I St., Ste. 7-600, Sacramento 95814, 916 448-2787, fax 202 228- 3865 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District3,DennisGarton,Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree,527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, Kris- tina Miller, 824-7033 Your officials Rick Jensen Chip Thompson, Editor How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: Daily News 728Main St., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Friday, April 7, 2017 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6