Comments on: Medicare Buy In Option A Good Idea

By: alish

alish — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 07:55:07 +0000

Nice article,I would like to say that certainly medicare has got some advantage over the health care plan.But this vary person to person.No plan can give you 100% security and reliability…..

By: Susan Fitzgerald

Susan Fitzgerald — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:43:23 +0000

Louise, 60% of the private sector health plans already are nonprofit (www.nonprofithealthcare.org)…so some of that logic is undercut. You’re right, providers would make less on these patients, and who do they make it up on? Private sector – the rest of us foot the bill, that’s just adding to the problem we already have.

Plus, the private sector industry groups (AHIP, Blues – full disclosure, I work for one) have already agreed to the concept of eliminating medical underwriting, just so it’s done across the board so all play by the same rules.

Who pays the tab doesn’t change the underlying problem that we have runaway demand for very expensive care supplied by an inefficient system. Not saying this is a bad idea, just saying it’s a patch job for the uninsured, interim humanitarian step, not the scope of reform needed.

By: Don Levit

Don Levit — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 14:06:21 +0000

Louise:
Public and private insurers use different accounting sytems.
Public insurers, such as Medicare, operate on a cash basis, while private insurers operate on an accrual basis.
Liabilities for Medicare do not extend beyond the current year, while private insurers account for liabilites that are expected to occur beyond the current year.
In addition, reserves in Medicare cannot be converted into cash, while reserves in a private insurer can be converted into cash.
At least from an accounting perspective, Medicare has a huge advantage over private insurers.
Don Levit