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The State of the Union, Health care and more lies from the President
In article > ,
(Jonathan Smith) wrote:
> Jenn > wrote in message
> >...
> > In article >,
> > "Tarver Engineering" > wrote:
> >
> > > "Jenn" > wrote in message
> > > ...
> > > > In article .net>,
> > > > "Steven P. McNicoll" > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > "john" > wrote in message
> > > > > ...
> > > > > >
> > > > > > So what am I to deduce from that statement? That the health care
> > > > > > needs
> > > > > > of all the people in the country was adequately taken care of
> > > > > > during
> > > > > > that period?
> > > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Pretty much. Prior to government meddling health care was far more
> > > > > affordable than it is today.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > the overhead for medicare is tiny compared to private insurance
> > > > companies
> > >
> > > False.
> > >
> > > Thanks for playing.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > this one is a no brainer and well documented -- private for profits and
> > insurance companies divert money that could go for providing health care
> > into bureaucracy and profit -- the 'efficiency' so touted by greedheads
> > is actually just about denying care
>
> OK - so Medicare is NOT a bureaucracy and opportunity cost of capital
> is not something a government needs to worry about?
>
> There are 4500 employees and an administrative budget of 2.5 billion
> dollars. A third of this is paid to outsource contractors to manage
> claims administration. The working capital alone to fund an
> organization of that size is huge - but no problem for Medicare, that
> comes out of someone elses pot of money, not theirs.
and yet the overhead admin costs for medicare is tiny compared to
insurance companies and HMOs --
>
> Second, the scope of Medicare is substantially less than the scope of
> most private insurance plans - let's start with drug benefits and go
> from there. Small plans spending on big ticket items (mostly
> inpatient) with little adjudication of billing makes fr some pretty
> low administrative costs.
>
> Third, Medicare has no direct marketing expenses. Now, you might
> think that this is a good thing - but the problem is, the government
> has huge expenses for "marketing" of Medicare, they just take it out
> of a different pot of money. Are you over 60? Have you gotten any
> mailings from CMS?
>
> A fourth factor is that Medicare is NOT an insurer. As such, it has
> no underwriting activity and faces no risk. So, no cost.
>
> Fifth, and foremost, and probably the most expensive part that
> Medicare conveniently avoids is - PREMIUMS. CMS gets a budget from
> Congress and never has to worry about where the money is coming from.
> The whole premium collection costs are off their books completely.
> Remember, that's the job of the IRS.
>
> > a single payer plan would save 100s of billions now wasted in insurance
> > company overhead
>
> Yes - the magic of government - makes overhead disappear.
>
> Pretty naive thinking.
so we should continue to not insure 20 percent of our population while
wasting up to 30% on overhead? good idea
>
> js
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