Now where do I sign to buy that bridge in Brooklyn again??

Coincidence?

1. When you subsidize something, you always get more of it. Expanding “free” medical care to people making upwards of $80K per year is going to result in a lot more people wanting it…not because they need it, but because it’s free and someone else is paying for it. So why not use the emergency room to take out that splinter…it won’t cost you anything! That’s already happened in many places where this sort of giveaway program’s been tried.

2. Except it’s not free, of course. The taxpayer will get shafted once again with this program. And if you think their cost estimates have any connection with reality, you’re wrong. Every time the left has proposed a new government health care program – Medicare, Medicaid, take your pick – their estimates for the cost have been low by a couple of orders of magnitude. Tommy, for one, still apparently believes in Santa Claus – all you need to do is “expand Government health coverage” and presto, no more problems. It materializes out of thin air, I suppose.

3. I’m bemused by the Lindata’s appeal to compassion for our poorest citizens, when the program expansion would water down the care for them. Note the focus of the administration’s position:

Administration officials said the changes were aimed at returning the focus to low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage, the Times said.

In other words, let’s provide these services to those least able to afford them. I’d think your well-placed compassion would have you supporting that. The program expansion has one obvious objective: buying votes with new freebies. Given the choice of using the money to help the poor get medical care or to help the politicians get votes, I’m all for the first option. What about you?

4. Baklava’s right – government operations are intrinsically less efficient than private organizations doing the same job (obvious exception: military or police functions), as they have little incentive to manage costs.

And to bring this back to the original point of ST’s post, what we have here is the MSM shilling for another big government boondoggle and casting aspersions on the idea of making some sort of attempt to focus scarce resources on those who need them the most.

That is not compassion.

When you reform and provide incentives for being responsible then people become more responsible, they actually prosper and children benefit.

Evidence from Welfare reform in the mid 90’s..

If a true comparison in administrative costs of each were made, one would also have to include IRS costs when it comes to Medicare.

Because the intent of the program is to help people who are poor. People who aren’t poor should be responsibly and should go them more efficient route.

The way to look at it (which even your author didn’t) is to look at total expenditures for a program – for instance the WIC program here in CA. Look at how much CA spends for WIC total versus how much in benefits the recipeient receives.

Welfare is 28 cents on the dollar, Medicare is similar, WIC is similar, AFDC, etc. ALL of them are under 50% of the dollars get to the recipient.

IF you are giving me sources like the one above who do not look at the total dollar spent versus the benefits the population receives (simple proportion) then they are BLOWING SMOKE.

Insurance companies have efficiency built in (it is laughable that you said 3 times higher administrative costs) because they cannot have the lazy government employee working for them – do not have the ability to have high costs and need to administer as best as possible to keep costs low.

Capitalism works Lindata. Believe it or not. Capitalism’s definition is the people choosing who gets what resources. When government chooses who gets what resources resources are squandered and there is no reward for efficiency and the tendency is to receive more and more of taxpayer dollars every year.

America’s ability to defend herself has gone down as what has been spent on defense per year has gone from 50% of expenditures 40 years ago to 19% today.

Government programs have grown, we are very compassionate and yet people like you and the NY Times cast aspersions on our compassion with no evidence to back it up.

This children’s health insurance program has had increased funding every year since inception. Bush has signed increases every year. PERIOD.

Bush may not hate kids, but he sure loves insurance companies a lot more that whatever his feelings are for kids.

What about you? Would it kill you if some of your taxes went to pay for insurance for the kids? Especially when you realize that without insurance, the kids are a burden on the state, and it’s only a question of which one you are paying for?

Medicare’s Hidden Administrative Costs:
A Comparison of Medicare and the Private Sector
(Based in Part on a Technical Paper by Mark Litow of Milliman, Inc.)
By Merrill Matthews, Ph.D.
January 10, 2006

Executive Summary

One of the most common, and least challenged, assertions in the debate over U.S. health care policy is that Medicare administrative costs are about 2 percent of claims costs, while private insurance companies’ administrative costs are in the 20 to 25 percent range.

It is very difficult to do a real apples-to-apples comparison of Medicare’s true costs with those of the insurance industry. The primary problem is that private sector insurers must track and divulge their administrative costs, while most of Medicare’s
administrative costs are hidden or completely ignored by the complex and bureaucratic reporting and tracking systems used by the government. This study, based in part on a technical paper by Mark Litow of Milliman, Inc., finds that Medicare’s actual administrative costs are 5.2 percent, when the hidden costs are included.

In addition, the technical paper shows that average private sector administrative costs, about 8.9 percent – and 16.7 percent when commission, premium tax, and profit are included – are significantly lower than the numbers frequently cited. But even though the private sector’s administrative costs are higher than Medicare’s, that isn’t “wasted money” that could go to insuring the uninsured. In fact, consumers receive significant value for those additional dollars.

We also raise an important, although heretofore unrecognized, issue that gives Medicare an inherent advantage on administrative costs. Because of the higher cost per beneficiary, Medicare administrative costs appear lower than they really are. If the
numbers were adequately “handicapped” for comparison with the private sector, they would be in the 6 to 8 percent range. Finally, like the private sector, Medicare also has to obtain funds to pay claims. But the cost of raising that money, or borrowing it if the government doesn’t collect it from taxpayers, is excluded from Medicare administrative cost calculations. While we don’t in this paper draw any conclusions about what we shall call the “cost of capital” and its impact on Medicare’s administrative costs, we do want to highlight that those costs
exist and that taxpayers, both today and in the future, must bear those costs.

Copyright © 2006 The Council for Affordable Health Insurance

So we have at worst for Medicare 6-8% (although why higher benefit payments on behalf of the patient should be factored out (”higher cost per beneficiary” as Dr. Matthews says – without that factoring even Dr. Matthews only gets the overhead to 5.2%) and 8.9% for the private sector 16.7% when commission, premium tax, and profit are included (and just why should they be excluded?).

So my reading is that private companies, at best, have roughly 3 times the overhead that medicare has. Completely ignoring the argument that the States pick up the extra emergency room costs that would be cheaper to cover under SCHIP.

I make less in CA. I choose to live here in the high tax state. Anybody, including myself can choose to move. There are great jobs (despite the stereotype otherwise) in many areas of the country.

The fact remains that $82,600 is in the top 20% of income earners and those leftist run states yes have high taxes….

The recipient traditionally receives on ly 25 cents on the dollar for a government program.

It isn’t compassionate to run things that way.

No matter what entity does it the dollars are “managed”. We’ve gotten away from realizing that insurance should be for catastrophes and the insurance companies have morphed into what we want them to be – there for our ever doctor visit when we have a cold.

Well, I for one would rather pay my own way most of the time until a catastrophe (high cost due to a large problem).

What Americans expect it seems is more received than paid. Neither the government nor insurance companies can do that on a general basis for all clients.

The topic of the thread was still not addressed Lindata. While I appreciate your slight tone change, I want to know what your feelings are about being told by the media one thing and finding out it’s not true…. So many stories like that and so little time….

Did you see my link to the Stossel piece above in comment #73?

I do not feel animosity toward insurance and other corporate entities caught in this vise. It is the nature of the beast. Perhaps this is why we decided to pay for fire departments out of government funds instead of leaving fire control to the insurance companies alone.

In any event, there are lots and lots of people who can’t get medical insurance. 30-40 million. Not all of them are dead beats…some of them are just sick. These are the people I am asking you to consider.

I am glad that you are concerned about the children of deadbeats. We agree that they didn’t ask to be born to irresponsible parents.

But I will admit that I am really annoyed at Bush and others who say we have universal coverage already because people are not turned away at emergency rooms. That part of the health insurance argument is bunk, and one of the clearest, and most ironic, examples are colonoscopies. Which, as I said, was covered by my previous Blue Sheild Plan, by my current United Health Care Plan, and is also covered by Kaiser plans.

If you are over 50 or have had any sort of carcinoma, I suggest you pay your money and/or get better insurance.

But you aren’t going to get it in an emergency room.

It is a completely separate topic and debate as to whether colonoscopies should be covered by insurance companies all the time.

HIPAA is a separate topic that gets people health insurance for a higher price also…

This thread is about what the press is doing – throwing about opinions not based on facts and not reporting the whole story. It happens time and time again….