Here's A Medicare/Medicaid Fix

How did you sleep last night? Were you kept awake with restless leg syndrome also known as RLS? You must remember that disease. It was on every television set at least once an hour for weeks on end. I recently had a visit to my doctor and asked about the RLS epidemic. After he stopped laughing and wanted to know the reason for asking he indicated that for some time, he had not had a patient with RLS complaints. This was not the case a while back when the RLS ads blanked the airwaves. My doctor did offer one observation, however. It seems that there is an epidemic of gout. Now that gout is being advertised, a majority of visits to his office involve questions about gout. So my suggestion is this: A federal tax of 10% should be levied on the media charges for any “ask your doctor” advertisement that is not limited to trade media. In addition, a federal tax of 10% should also be levied on the media costs for any “ask your doctor” product where the advertisement is not limited to trade media. All of the revenue generated by these taxes should be directed to Medicare/Medicaid accounts to offset the costs created by these ads. According to many physicians, patient visits and patients symptoms are greatly influenced by these advertisements for prescription drugs and highlight and focus attention on some symptom and end with the you’re your doctor if (drug name) is right for you”. These advertisements increase patient visits and because many of the patients featured in these ads are elderly they increase the costs of Medicare and Medicaid services. One other way to save costs of these programs and reduce costs to insurance companies would be to require that companies lease rather than sell durable medical equipment like wheel chairs and diabetes testing equipment. To begin with, the government, in particular, pays an outrageous price to purchase items of this type. Because the costs to patients are virtually negligible, when no longer needed, there is no market for them used. A wheel chair or crutches may only be used for a short time but will be purchased used. When I had surgery a few years ago, my Medicare Advantage insurance company paid full price for a cane that was used to get me to the car from the hospital and from the car to my home. The next day, when I no longer needed the cane, I asked about the return and was told I own it and it is not wanted back. A similar circumstance was involved when my father passed away and no longer needed his powered wheel chair. It had no value as used equipment because the government and insurance would buy someone a new rather than used device, and pay top dollar for that device. Instead of being purchased many devices could be leased and then returned, reconditioned, and reused at a far lower cost to the Medicare/Medicaid programs. (side effects of this tax might include headaches, rashes, and unexplained itching on the part of big pharma)