How is Medicare so Efficient?

Damo - My question remains, how are you defining efficient?

I, for one, am completely surprised that a government program designed to pay for healthcare that it's clients receive pays more for fraudulent services than private insurance companies that are designed to not pay for treatment for insureds.

Got any dog bites man stories you care to post about?
 
Note also the "They do it worse!" defense that my mother saw through when I was a kid.

That is weak Cypress. Just weak.

Let's plug the fricking hole. At least Desh gave a solution.
 
Dungheap said:
Damo - My question remains, how are you defining efficient?

I, for one, am completely surprised that a government program designed to pay for healthcare that it's clients receive pays more for fraudulent services than private insurance companies that are designed to not pay for treatment for insureds.

Got any dog bites man stories you care to post about?
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Dung, Cypress and Co. have been using the low overhead cost of Medicare on their Bully Pulpit for the past year calling it "amazingly efficient". So ask them how they define "efficient", or go and define it yourself. I am simply using their "low overhead" as "efficient" as they have for the past year.

I figured that I pointed out that OTHERS had used LOW OVERHEAD COST earlier in the thread and the fact that I put "efficient" into quotes that it certainly wasn't MY definition of "efficient" that was being used.
 
Damo - I think everyone agrees that we should plug the hole. Your conclusion that government run healthcare automatically means attendant fraud is unsupported by the evidence you provided. Even the piece you posted noted that something can be done to prevent the fraud but guess what, that would cost money. I'm sure you are in favor of that spending increase, right?
 
Damocles said:
Dung, Cypress and Co. have been using the low overhead cost of Medicare on their Bully Pulpit for the past year calling it "amazingly efficient". So ask them how they define "efficient", or go and define it yourself. I am simply using their "low overhead" as "efficient" as they have for the past year.
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Well, what is surprising about a system designed to pay claims being more prone to fraud than a system designed to deny claims? That's my question.
 
Dungheap said:
Damo - I think everyone agrees that we should plug the hole. Your conclusion that government run healthcare automatically means attendant fraud is unsupported by the evidence you provided. Even the piece you posted noted that something can be done to prevent the fraud but guess what, that would cost money. I'm sure you are in favor of that spending increase, right?
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Duh. My argument was that fixing the issue will raise the overhead cost but save us money in the end. Instead of agreeing, as you pretend they have, the people have been defending this "amazing efficiency" and only one provided any solution at all. As they continued to "suggest" that because France does it so efficiently so can we. Fine, do it. But don't ignore the problem and give me excuses why this should be considered "efficient".
 
Dung, I pointed out in my first post, not that nationalizing health care won't work at all. I think it has shown that it CAN work in other places. I pointed that if we don't fix this crap first and ignore it just to glom onto some national health care we will just be ripping ourselves off.
 
Damocles said:
Duh. My argument was that fixing the issue will raise the overhead cost but save us money in the end. Instead of agreeing, as you pretend they have, the people have been defending this "amazing efficiency" and only one provided any solution at all. As they continued to "suggest" that because France does it so efficiently so can we. Fine, do it. But don't ignore the problem and give me excuses why this should be considered "efficient".
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Well, based on what the Secretary said in your piece, cracking down on fraud would bring in about $20 for each $1 spent. It seems to me that such measures would increase efficiency, not decrease it. No?
 
Dungheap said:
Well, what is surprising about a system designed to pay claims being more prone to fraud than a system designed to deny claims? That's my question.
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A system designed to pay claims with no checks is even more "efficient" than one designed to pay claims. However it becomes far less efficient to actual results when you begin to realize that you spent so much more than you would have if you just hired a bit of people to check a few of these things. Maybe like the one that was reported by that old lady in the video... That would be a big beginning.
 
Dungheap said:
Well, based on what the Secretary said in your piece, cracking down on fraud would bring in about $20 for each $1 spent. It seems to me that such measures would increase efficiency, not decrease it. No?
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That is WHAT I SAID! Instead of working to fix it, or even being a bit shocked that the "amazing efficiency" based on "overhead" alone as they had been presenting it was costing us more money, all I have heard so far in this thread, save for one, is defense for their total lack of spending our money responsibly.
 
Damocles said:
That is WHAT I SAID! Instead of working to fix it, or even being a bit shocked that the "amazing efficiency" based on "overhead" alone as they had been presenting it was costing us more money, all I have heard so far in this thread, save for one, is defense for their total lack of spending our money responsibly.
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OK. Well, chalk me up for more efficiency in the comparatively more efficient Medicare. I'm all for that.
 
Watermark said:
I can hardly imagine hiring a little extra staff costing 80 billion, and I can hardly imagine 80 billion matching the overhead of the extremely wasteful private insurance companies, but I'll give you the benefit of a doubt you don't deserve.
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Oh, I see what I did. Bad sentence structure.

I like that Desh was willing to see the issue and bring something to the table as a solution. It will raise the overhead a bit to run checks as we should, but it won't nearly cost us what the fraud costs us. I wasn't rejecting what Desh said, however much it seemed so by my too quickly written response. I was advocating exactly that response from people.

It will, however, cut a bit into that "amazing efficiency" that was presented to me earlier on many posts singing the praises of Medicare. Desh, read the post, saw what I was saying, then presented the solution that I expected to see.

Contrary to my personal belief of how I think government should be run, I am a realist and know that we cannot get rid of what is. And if we are going to do it, we should work to do it while spending the least amount of money that we force from the pockets of taxpayers. We shouldn't waste our money on those who work to defraud us all.
 
Dungheap said:
?
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You said earlier how my posts were saying that "nationalizing" is "bad". It isn't about good or bad, it is about the fact that if we don't first fix the cost basis, we are bankrupting ourselves. Especially if we don't look into such things as the "amazing efficiency" of programs...
 
Dungheap said:
Well, what is surprising about a system designed to pay claims being more prone to fraud than a system designed to deny claims? That's my question.
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What is surprising is that when people point out a hole or a problem in the program all I get is a bunch of "Well, it's all good because..." and very little, "Well, if we fixed that it would cost us less, let's work on that."

Defense just because it is a program you support, or it will take away a portion of your argument on a message board, is not good government, it pretty much is negligence.
 
Damo - You seem to think that you are dispelling the notion that Medicare is efficient. You aren't. All you are showing is that Medicare can be more efficient than it already is.
 
Dungheap said:
Damo - You seem to think that you are dispelling the notion that Medicare is efficient. You aren't. All you are showing is that Medicare can be more efficient than it already is.
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It isn't "more efficient" when it is spending more than the overhead that private companies spend to check fraud on the fraud itself.

I am saying that it can be made efficient (actual efficiency, not pretend efficiency based solely on overhead), but it will cost in the "overhead shows that medicare is efficient" argument so instead I get a bunch of "Well, Medicaid does it worse!" or "It's okay because"...

Basically you are arguing in agreement with me. You "feel" that I would disagree based on an assumption of my opinion and therefore continue to be all ready to be up in arms, but so far you haven't said something that I haven't already stated in different words earlier.

Well except the mistaken belief that it is "efficient" to begin with.
 
Dungheap, I stated earlier and am going to repeat it here so that I am sure you will read it.

Contrary to how I think government should be run, I live in the real world. I therefore work to weave some of my beliefs into government. Running a program like this with lower cost by working in a few checks on occasion is better than just pretending we can get rid of it and thus allowing it to continue as it has been. Even if I wish the program hadn't begun that way and that there might have been a better solution.

I think it was a mistake to ever connect the place of employment with health care insurance to begin with. Instead of having them pay a bit extra to the employee towards choices that are outside the company and that they could keep even while moving companies... for instance. However, we must work within reality. The government decided that giving companies a break for providing for others was better than allowing people to provide for themselves. It was a crappy solution, but it is reality.
 
So you have support for the idea that Medicare spends more in fraudulent claims than private insurers spend on fraud detection? I'd like to see it.

The fact remains that Medicare is more efficient than private insurance. If better fraud detection measures were put in place it would simply be more efficient than it already is.
 
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