I just read an article on CNN that kind of bothered me. The subject of the article was about a town overrun with old people on scooters, but what bothered me was how these scooters are being obtained. Most of the scooters are subsidized by Medicare. These things are not cheap, at $5,000 or more, these things cost as much as a used car. Medicare payments for the devices rose from $22.3 million in 1995 to $666.5 million in 2003. Over 600 million dollars spent by our government? While that is pocket change when compared to the Iraq war, it is still a lot of cash. No wonder social security is in trouble and Medicare needs reformed. If you ask me, the scooter industry has some friends in Washington.
Before I get flamed, I am not saying that nobody needs these scooters, there are some who have genuine disabilities that would require such a device, but the rules should be tight, and the federal government should not be paying $5000 for these things. It is also partially a problem with the companies selling these scooters; they advertise them as “little or no cost to you”. These companies do the leg work to get the Medicare approvals, making it easier for them to systematically manipulate the Medicare system and get their $5000 per scooter.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/09/20/scooter.traffic.ap/index.html
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You are a communist. Tighter laws will make it harder for these old people. You need to move to virginia. Communist!
Wait a minute. I'm paying for these? We need to put a stop to this immediatly.
-sgof
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