I started seeing my current family practice when I was 56 years old so I was able to transition to Medicare when I became 65 even though the practice was not accepting any new Medicare patients. I’ve been covered by BlueCross/Blue Shield for the past 35 years (now secondary to Medicare) and have no complaints. My wife needed to see multiple specialists during the past decade and none would have accepted just Medicare for payment.

Medicare, like most federal programs, is not efficiently run. Fraud and abuse is common and wastes billions of dollars.

America healthcare needs an alternative to profit priority capitalism and socialism. Perhaps benefit corporations and worker cooperatives could provide competent care at reasonable costs.