Health+Policy+Briefing

__Health Care Briefing__
 * 1)  Top 5 health issues facing the United States: Medicare Funding, Health Insurance, Chronic Disease, Obesity, and Hospital staff shortages [] []
 * 2)  A main health care issue is Medicare Funding being reduced.
 * 3)  The main problem is that we need to find ways to reduce money due to the economic situation, but it would be political suicide to cut benefits received from Medicare because the greatest voting demographic is receiving these benefits. - []
 * 4)  This impacts the United States as a whole, because not matter what decision is made it is going to have a negative effect on someone. - []
 * 5)  The demographic includes all American citizens 65 and older who rely on Medicare to pay for their medical bills. - []
 * 6)  The government will be spending approximately 507.1 billion dollars on Medicare. - []
 * 7)  The reform would cost an estimated 940 billion dollars. - []
 * 8)  By 2082 the United States would be spending an estimated 70% of the entire nations wealth on healthcare alone if nothing is done to impede the rising costs. - []
 * 9)  If the age of receiving benefits was pushed back, rather than the current age of 65, and people were provided with vouchers for a certain amount of money than this would reduce the overall cost of Medicare. The vouchers would be based of income and whether or not a large amount of aid is needed. - []
 * 10)   "Consumers, spending their own money, will drive down prices." Said Paul Ryan of the current Medicare system in place.-  []
 * 11)  69% of people over the age of 65 prefer the current Medicare system over the voucher system according to a poll taken by Pew Research/National Journal. - []