Paul Ryan's Medicare Faceplant

[Indy]

[Professor]

I guess it's a good article. Except that it's wrong.

Concerning Medicare, health insurance is cheaper than Medicare. Why? Well, it's kind of hard to compare the two without making a single leap of intuition. Since Medicare charges no monthly premiums, you have to imagine what would happen if it did, in order to compare apples to apples.

If it did charge premiums, then those premiums would be based upon the relative risk of its policyholder population. Medicare is the single highest risk pool of people in the country. Therefore, one has to conclude that the premiums would be astronomically high, if not fully paid by the Fed. Conversely, health insurance companies would be able to cost-shift onto relatively healthier (ie: younger) policy holders. They would be able to charge the elderly a lot less per month, by charging healthier policyholders a little more per month.

He has a point about a single Medicare policyholder not being able to negotiate. But, under Obamacare (one of the many good parts of the law) people are allowed to form pools across state lines. Therefore, millions of Medicare policyholders would be able to combine their bargaining power, and together be able to negotiate far lower rates than GM, GE or any other company.

As for Medicaid, he is also dead wrong about the states not being able to do better than the Fed. Already, every state in the union has solicited private insurance companies to take over parts (varying from large parts to small parts) of their Medicaid programs, simply because the health insurance companies could provide the same coverages for less money. States were literally able to provide better or equal services to their policyholders (it's a Federal requirement that services be equal or better) and yet still save money when they went with private insurers.

But, I really wouldn't expect for an economist (the guy who wrote the editorial) at a Maryland business school to have an in-depth understanding of Medicare and Medicaid.

[Indy]

[The Dude]

[Spider]

[The Dharma Bum]

You guys are missing the take away.

A $100 monthly premium in no way adequately addresses the high cost/risk incurred by the inherent physical condition of this segment of the population.

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dude]

We also pay a medicare tax our entire working lives. Where is that figured into that?

[Precocity]

[Kane]