One reason for the high cost of medical stuff is that
medicare only pays about 20% of what they are billed
for. So a doctor might order up extra tests just to
pad the bill up enough to break even money wise.

Of course they can't really bill medicare patients
5X more than others, so the costs get reflected
onto other non-medicare patients. In a lot of cases
they'll just deny medicare.

Adding more patients to a medicare-like system 
without funding it will just mean that the
percentage the doctors get paid is smaller,
and the on-paper costs higher.

Politicians are acting like a bunch of bandits that
have stolen beer from a tavern, they've drunk the 
beer, so they figure they'll go back and steal
more of it, but all the beer is gone now.

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