over the cliff, onto the rocks.: Health? Care? [thanking you once again, sydbristow]

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Health? Care? [thanking you once again, sydbristow]

Being one of the 46,000,000, I was going to unleash a rant provoked by this post, but I've changed my mind. Instead, I think I'll load y'all down with a little more light reading. After all, I'm going to be wading through all this, why should I deny everyone else the chance to?

I'm still leaning towards the "Medicare for All" approach, though there's many a detractor out there. Here's some stuff on [mostly] administrative costs:

Where do health spending dollars go?

Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs
A SUMMARY OF THE 2006 ANNUAL REPORTS

National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare

Medicare's Hidden Administrative Costs

Additional Talking Points in Response to AHA's Study on Hospital Costs

Perspective: Administrative Costs of Private Health Insurance Plans

[ugh. an audit.]

The Incalculable Costs of Medicare

Medicare for All? No Thanks, Part II

Bringing single-payer healthcare to America, the stealthier way

7 comments:

Keifus said...: Damn you and your light reading. The reason I like tidy, packaged opinions is that I don't have to sift through audits. If I'm crunching numbers, then I'm, you know, working.

The detractors picked an odd point to hammer wrt admin costs. According to the first paper, it still comes out at a pretty significant advantage over private insurers, and that's including congressional salaries (how silly is that). And in the second paper (okay, blog entry), the significant fact that Medicare recipients are sicker....it's like those private health care planners are adding extra people to ensure they provide less insurance.

Furthermore, this wangle completely omits the administration costs that the plans create for users, whether hospitals or companies, or whatever. It's comparing the operating costs of the companies, not the metric tons of manpower on the low end that's needed to sift through 14 similar brands of obfuscatory bullshit.

On the other hand, I'm feeling a little more comfortable with my own turgidity-vision.

K (wlgvlg, we'll grovel along); Friday, January 05, 2007 9:58:00 AM
Keifus said...: sorry, read "operating costs of the providers" there.

And more manpower to guarantee less insurance is exactly what private providers do. Relates to quality only if you're in the group, like the security guards at the country club door, keeping the riffraff out.

K; Friday, January 05, 2007 10:01:00 AM
hipparchia said...: damn your eyes for [apparently] reading ahead of me. i've read two of them, dug around in three others, and skimmed the rest.

the gist seems to be that medicare isn't as efficient as its proponents claim, and private insurance is more efficient than its detractors say, but overall it looks like medicare still wins by a nose.

even if they were exactly the same, medicare is doing what they're doing with the oldest and most expensive sector of the population, while private insurers have been steadily weeding out all but the young and healthy.

on the surface, opening the pool to everyone, young and old, sick and well, should spread only a slightly larger risk over a much larger population.

the only drawback that i can see to that [so far] is that up till now, everyone pays into medicare for 40-ish years, but probably only uses for 20-ish years, but opening it up to everyone means opening up to kids, who aren't paying in at all, and to younger adults, who are paying in, but would be taking out at the same time. i haven't quite figured out how and where to look for numbers that cover this part of it.

xuriixm suri is crossing me with xenu [lame]

second attempt: fcytrk fancy truck [bore-ring]; Friday, January 05, 2007 5:50:00 PM
Keifus said...: Fancy truck? Are you fancy-trucking kidding me?! What the fancy-truck are you, some kind of fancy-trucking saint or something?

(Evidently, I'm feeling better about my little crisis.)

Yeah, I read most of 'em. I was so startled at the irrelevant defense that was mounted against the system that I kept on. (Though of course I skimmed the audit.) Even if its costs are nearly the same, then there's still the observation that we can include the sick and infirm for the same price. Damning stuff.

Though your point about who's paying and for how long is a good one. Maybe it would be a good idea to consider the post-1984 (1983?) history of that one though. We've all been overpaying for a while now in anticipation of demographic imbalance.

Ringo (vcyhyrz....are there high-rises in Vichy? er, I mean hy-rizes. Sorry that's so fancy-trucking weak.)

("Damn you eyes." He was before my time, but just the same, I miss Marty Feldman.); Friday, January 05, 2007 6:23:00 PM
Anonymous said...: jlpty your truck is a jalopy.

if there aren't high rises in vichy, that's even better. did ceasar really have frogs? well, he does now.

right now my dad [double-major engineering/economics] is educating me on the ins and outs of the funding for social securtiy, medicare, medicaid, etc, as it's currently practiced. once i'm sufficiently, edjumicated on that part, y'all won't have much homework to do; i'll just post a cliffs notes distillation of his lectures.

dlsxgqyw double your sex, the gq way [i must be taking too long to compose my comments, with word verification changing faster than i can type]; Saturday, January 06, 2007 12:57:00 PM
Keifus said...: Wouldn't it be cool to double it the earwig way? I mean, I've got two hands, so what the hell?

K (elqpsg: elapsed squeegee); Saturday, January 06, 2007 6:15:00 PM
hipparchia said...: good lord! i missed that one. i must have been out doing that last minute christmas shopping that day.

or eloquent sqealing pig; Saturday, January 06, 2007 7:45:00 PM