The Disadvantage of Privatizing Medicare

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.afscmeblog.org/2008/03/18/the-disadvantage-of-privatizing-medicare/

March 18th, 2008

The Disadvantage of Privatizing Medicare

In 2003, right-wing members of Congress and the White House implemented a stealth plan to ultimately privatize Medicare. Medicare Advantage, as the program is known, moves seniors and the disabled out of traditional, government administered, Medicare and into private health insurance plans.

The problem is these private plans are more costly than the traditional Medicare program, they provide less care, and they threaten the long term financial solvency of the Medicare program. As noted in a recent Des Moines Register editorial, insurance companies are getting their pockets lined, while enrollees in this program wind up paying more for less care.

Congressional investigators have concluded these private plans cost taxpayers more per beneficiary than traditional Medicare, pad the profits of insurance companies and can end up costing those enrolled in the plans more money for some services than if they’d remained in traditional Medicare.

The privatization of Medicare will ultimately lead to substantial increases in health costs to Medicare beneficiaries, substantial cuts in benefits, or a combination of the two. Just as AFSCME and its allies stopped the privatization of Social Security, we must now act to protect Medicare.

[DesertFlower]

1. thank you for that post.

i heard about this from AARP a few months ago. i knew about the private insurance companies, but i didn't know until then that they get paid for than the medicare doctors.

this is why medicare is in trouble.

[Selatius]

2. It is a boondoggle. Has Obama and Hillary said they'd get rid of Medicare Advantage?

If not, they should.

[DesertFlower]

6. the problem is that people

having been using it for years.

i have friends that are on SSD and use the insurance companies. most have drug coverage included.

[phillysuse]

3. Medicare Advantage plans cost the government 12% more

than standard Medicare. They are a transfer from the government directly to private insurance companies. The patients get higher co-pays and higher deductables.

Fortunately more physicians and hospitals are refusing to be involved with these plans.

Ultimately that is how they will fail, if the patients can't find anyone to see them who will take these plans.

[Selatius]

5. I'd rather the next Democratic president kill it off directly by abolishing rather than starving it

Got to make sure the zombie is truly dead and won't rise again.

[better tomorrow]

4. I'm on Medicare and I like what I got......

[DesertFlower]

7. i've been eligible for a year,

but chose to stay with hubby's insurance which is cheaper and has better coverage.

when the time comes that i decide to use it, i will use the medicare and avoid the insurance companies.

[better tomorrow]

8. Actually, I like going to ANY doctor I want and not an HMO....

and besides, when I come in to an office, they ask and when I say "Medicare" they usually put me on the lowest pay schedule.

[DesertFlower]

9. well that's good.

we have united health care -- PPO. our plan has tons of doctors and we don't need approval from the company or a doctor's referral to see most specialists. we do have deductibles and co-pays. we've been with them for 10 years or more and so far -- no problems.

i would never chose an HMO.

[Donnachaidh]

12. same here

But the amount they've taken out of my check for Medicare has gone up 200% since I started getting SSD. I'd like to know WTF that extra money is going to - because my regular docs refuse to do the paperwork to get paid with Medicare as a secondary insurance. :shrug:

[southlandshari]

10. If Medicare is privatized....

We all might as well all find our fucking handbasket from now.

:(

I'm serious. Privatization of the health insurance industry ala Richard Nixon and John Ehrlichman and Edward Kaiser who made official what others had been peddling during the previous decade --- is beyond stupid.

The sad, sad state of our health care system is directly due to privatization of the insurance industry. American health in general doesn't rank anywhere near the top of the global list at this point. But what does that matter when profits for insurance companies are through the roof yet again?

Profits made, btw, by stepping on the cold, dead bodies of Americans - just like you and me and our parents and our children and all our other loved ones - who were insured but still couldn't get the care they needed. Not because technology wasn't there. Because the business managers didn't find it cost-benefical.

Privatize medicaid and/or medicare?

No. No. No. No.

This is a battle worth fighting for all of us.

[DesertFlower]

11. problem is it's already been done.

that's why medicare is in trouble. :cry: