Medicare Saves Money

[maxx]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/op...20Money&st=cse

"... here’s what you need to know: Medicare actually saves money — a lot of money — compared with relying on private insurance companies. And this in turn means that pushing people out of Medicare, in addition to depriving many Americans of needed care, would almost surely end up increasing total health care costs...

hasn’t Medicare spending risen dramatically over time? Yes, it has: adjusting for overall inflation, Medicare spending per beneficiary rose more than 400 percent from 1969 to 2009. But inflation-adjusted premiums on private health insurance rose more than 700 percent over the same period. So while it’s true that Medicare has done an inadequate job of controlling costs, the private sector has done much worse. And if we deny Medicare to 65- and 66-year-olds, we’ll be forcing them to get private insurance — if they can — that will cost much more than it would have cost to provide the same coverage through Medicare...

as the economist [[and former Reagan adviser) Bruce Bartlett points out, high U.S. private spending on health care, compared with spending in other advanced countries, just about wipes out any benefit we might receive from our relatively low tax burden..."

[rb336]

uh-oh, the market fundies will pounce on this. The same comments were made back in the debate about national health care. if it doesn't pad the fat cats' wallets it won't fly in the US

[jiminnm]

I would argue the opposite or, alternatively, there's no way of knowing. Medicare payments to doctors have been squeezed so much that I expect the prices charged to non-Medicare patients have skyrocketed. Last I read, Medicare paid 75-80% of what insurers pay for the same service. This is only going to worsen in the future as there is more and more pressure is applied to get Medicare costs under control.

Also, fewer doctors everyday are accepting new Medicare patients because of the low amounts they receive from Medicare. The last numbers I saw, only about 70% of doctors are accepting new Medicare patients. One notable example is the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. They stopped accepting new Medicare patients in 2010 under a 2 year test to determine if they were losing as much money as they estimated from Medicare patients. If so, they will stop accepting new Medicare patients at all of their facilities.

It is likely that we will have Medicare into the future, but there may be few doctors to pick from.

[maxx]

http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/

In the last ten minutes of the show, Dr. Ansell says that Medicare is better than the for-profit system.

There are fewer doctors taking Medicare patients because Congress is appropriating less and less money per patient to Medicare. But people without insurance keep using emergency rooms for ailments that don't get treated until they need a lot of care. This is not the way to run a medical system.

[jiminnm]

There are fewer doctors taking Medicare patients because Congress is appropriating less and less money per patient to Medicare.

This is the point I made and contradicts the point I think you were trying to make with your original post.

Also, do you ever have an original thought or do you just read things on the web and post links here?