Promesas y realidades

Las promesas:

Like Social Security, Medicare represents a promise that the Nation has made to its senior citizens—a promise that we have an enduring obligation to keep.

Las realidades:

The financial health of the Medicare trust fund has eroded sharply because of added expenses that were mandated by Congress last year, and the program is now expected to run out of money seven years earlier than under previous estimates, officials announced today.

The trust fund is expected to be depleted in 2019, according to the annual report of the Medicare trustees, compared with the prediction of 2026 in last year's report.

Contado en el Washington Post.

En el Heartland Institute analizan más profundamente la situación:

Today two U.S. Senators [...] plan to introduce legislation allowing the federal government to directly negotiate drug prices with private drug companies.
[...]
Governments don’t “negotiate” prices, they set a price and punish firms that fail to sell at that price.
[...]
If given the power, politicians always set prices too low. The reason is the benefits of lower prices are immediate and visible, while the costs are largely invisible and longer-term ... after voters have forgotten or the politician has left office. The result is less investment, innovation, competition, and consumer choice in the price-controlled industry.

De esto ya sabemos mucho en España, y lo que nos queda.