Re: a dumb query? pls humor me

[judd@wadsworth.org]

On  7 Mar, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 07, 2007 at 03:04:21PM -0500, judd@wadsworth.org wrote:
>> On  7 Mar, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
>> >> 
>> > Really?  Then why won't every doctor in American accept Medicare?
>> >
>> 
>>      Irrelevant.  Not every doctor in America accepts any private
>> health plan, either, even very good ones, like the one that I have.
>> 
>>      I was talking about efficiency.  Medicare's overhead is about 5%,
>> as opposed to about 15% for private health plans.  Add to that the 
>> profit margin of the private plans, and you can see that medicare is 
>> easily the most efficient.  Perhaps some plans reimburse more than
>> medicare does, and some doctors don't want to accept it the lower
>> rate. That would add to the cost to the consumer, and if anything is
>> less efficient.
>> 
> So, if medicare is so efficient, you'd think that doctors would be
> clamoring to accept it.  Their overhead is lower so they should be
> able to pay the doctors more, right?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> -Roberto
> 

     Again, my point was that medicare is more efficient.

     If private insurance reimburses at a higher rate, it costs the
consumer even more.  If medicare raised their rates, perhaps more
doctors would accept it.  It would still be more efficient than the
private plans, which was my point.

-Chris

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|   Christopher Judd, Ph. D.                      judd@wadsworth.org   |
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