Republican Politician/Fox Commentator Thanks United States Medicare, Illegal Immigrants for "Free" Operation

I recently saw a column by a Republican politician/Fox commentator named Linda Chavez concerning Medicare. I certainly hope this woman has good luck with her operation but she is scary ignorant about Medicare. It is further concerning that her bio says she was a United States cabinet member at one time. But given her ignorance on the subject, it does not surprise me that she is a cable news commentator.

1. She is NOT getting her operation "free of charge" because of Medicare. Given her complete bio (not at link), she and/or her spouse paid income tax and payroll tax into the Medicare system for 45-50 years to pay for the operation. She also pays a premium today now that she is on Medicare.
2. For that, Medicare will only pay for 80% of whatever Medicare thinks her surgery is worth (which is surely not what the surgery is really worth); she is responsible for the remaining 20%, or even more if she has chosen a top-notch surgeon who does not accept Medicare assignment (so she owes probably at least $15,000 for her "free" operation given her description, after tens of thousands of dollars of previous "payments"). 
3. Medicare WILL pay all but $1200 of her hospital room and board depending on length of stay but Medicare has a lifetime and per-incident limit on hospital days. It also sounds like she might needs some skilled-nursing-dependent rehab; Medicare will pay some of that but also limited on a per-incident basis. On average, Medicare only pays half of a beneficiaries health costs (by Obamacare Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum standards, Medicare is a Balsa Plan.)
4. The fact that she gets a $100,000 operation partially covered by Medicare and some others live to over 90 never needing much more that a flu shot is just the nature of insurance. It has nothing to do with Medicare.
5. Her bio says she was born after 1945. Therefore the amount she paid in to the Medicare system in income taxes and Medicare payroll taxes -- plus the additional pooling effect of those that did not live to age 65 to take advantage of their Medicare contributions -- is at least enough to pay for the benefits we of that age or younger receive from Medicare. In fact, if you are much younger, President Reagan screwed you.
6. For those who are older than we baby boomers, yes --  Congress purposely gave them a good deal (the older the better the deal, particularly true for all the people who were 65 or older in 1965  and never contributed at all while working). This was well known and widely debated in 1965. The alternative was to wait until the pool built up as FDR did with Social Security.
7. "Living long" has little to do with the value of the Medicare resources one uses on average. Most of your costs are incurred in the final year of life whether you live to 90 or 70.

And as for her using all this ignorance as an argument for illegal immigration¹, what can you say?

 

¹Except that the Harvard research she cites looks really flawed, it is interesting that is says that the illegal immigrants bringing in illegal drugs aren't stupid enough to use them.