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Other countries that have reasonable health care systems for their citizens do so by having coverage in place that closely emulates our Medicare program. Costs for services are strictly controlled.
Our Medicare program has very, very low administration costs compared to private insurance company's health care insurance programs. Does this suggest that we might do the same? Of course!
If the graph showed the private ins expenditures only for those 62 and older, it might show a little more accurate a picture. But even then, people 62 and over would be a decreasing number as they even get excluded or payments for them reach their cap. There would be no decreasing number on the Medicare side due to dropping or caps. Certainly not an apples to apples chart. But, what would you expect from the Heritage Foundation?
The data is accurate. What might be misleading is that we spend most of our healthcare dollars in the final year two years of life.
On the other side, proponents of a government plan frequently use the lower administrative costs of Medicare as a selling point. On an absolute basis, private insurers have far lower administrative costs. The Medicare percentage is lower simply because the denominator is so large.
Lies, darn lies, and statistics. The simple fact: somebody has to process the claims and push the paper. The government employee actually makes more than his private insurance counterpart. Do the research.
The data may be accurate, but the analysis seems off.
Why do private companies need to spend a higher percentage on admin costs than Medicaire? Where is the graph that supports the claim that "administrative costs per patient are only slightly higher for Medicaire than private companies?" Cause that graph would make a better point than this graph. Or a graph that includes Medicaire waste.
Your graph still shows Medicaire covering a lot more for a lot less money.
And, yes, old people are expensive to take care of. That's a discussion that not many politicians on either side will take on directly.
Here are some of the reasons on the differences in administration costs.
The lower reported administrative costs for Medicare are unsurprising, in that Medicare spends substantially less on such functions as marketing, risk evaluation, claims scrutiny, and compliance with the regulatory requirements of the individual states. This does not mean that the higher reported administrative costs of private health insurance are “wasteful.” Instead, they serve the interests of consumers by reducing the extent to which insurance creates cross-subsidies among consumer classes; such cross-subsidies reduce the economic benefits of risk-pooling. Private administrative functions also impose discipline on the consumption of health-care resources, thus reducing upward pressure on insurance premiums.
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