Social Security - Medicare - Medicaid, Where does it go from here?

A rant brought on by newspaper stories.

Of the three programs, Medicaid is in the worst shape and SS is in the best. So what does the federal administration focus on? The one that is easiest to fix. Let's not worry about the hard ones.

Reminds me of what happened at my jr. college. They were concerned about the fact that a large number of high school graduates were not ready for college level classes and were dropping or failing their freshman classes. The school made a study about which subjects that they needed to provide remedial classes to get the incoming students up to speed. The results: 60% needed help with math and 40% needed help with English. What did they do? They used the study to justify remedial English classes. No classes for remedial math. WTF!! Dr. Deming, the father of quality improvement, would be appalled. To make a product or process better you fix the worst things first. Not fix that which is the easiest. Fixing anything but the worst only makes marginal improvements.

We will not fix these entitlement programs working at the margins. It will take more than ineffective words, it will take leadership. I don't think our politicians are up to it. Oh well.