Apparently, people on Medicare/Medicaid are more prone to abuse prescription drugs than people who are not.
This surprises me not at all. If an individual would be otherwise inclined to abuse drugs, it's cheaper (though not cheap) to abuse illegal narcotics than to shop around for doctors and buy prescription drugs. However, if the government is going to pay for the doctors and prescriptions for you, there's no reason to spend your own money going the illegal route.
And the government wonders why the taxpayers wanted nothing to do with subsidizing healthcare programs.
53 minutes ago
no where in the story you linked to was there a comparison between rate of narcotic abuse of those on Medicare and Medicaid vs. those who are not. In fact the story was only about Medicare; the story only mentioned Medicaid in the sentence, "Jonathan D. Blum, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services..."
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I was basing that on my experiences growing up. The explanation I offered is one I heard from some of my neighbors in the low income housing.
ReplyDeleteNot all of those on Medicare or Medicaid will be a problem--it's only a few that really spoil it for all.
That truly is the truth there. I was pointing out to a woman on Medicaid--that it is not 'free' medical care--dumber than a box of rocks, she simply did not grasp the concept... "I'll just go to the ER" and I pointed out that she should go to a clinic, WHERE her Dr. is...and she said, "it don't matter" she says, "I don't have to pay for it" box of rocks...
ReplyDeleteBut even with the stupid human tricks like this---I'd bet the biggest share of the waste is due to systemic fraud and corruption due to the drug and device and regulatory failures of the FDA, the "health service orgs" which contract for services--and the "enrolled" stupid human tricks cost pales in comparison.
BTW what's with the Medicaid program paying for expensive "NON" covered Psychiatric drugs for a coupla decades---Don't tell that wasn't authorized...