Thursday, August 23, 2012

The Failure of Medicare Advantage

Paul Krugman calls a spade a spade.
Medicare Advantage is a 15-year failed experiment in privatization. Running Medicare through private insurance companies was supposed to save money through the magic of the marketplace; in reality, private insurers, with their extra overhead, have never been able to compete on a level playing field with conventional Medicare. But Congress refused to take no for an answer, and kept the program alive by paying the insurers substantially more than the costs per patient of regular Medicare. All the ACA does is end this overpayment.
So the Romney/Ryan plan to convert all of Medicare to this scam system will surely work, right?  Right?

4 comments:

  1. Right you are. Glad you are back. I've missed your wit.

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  2. Thanks! Between moving to Madison and a lot of other personal stuff, I dropped the blog for a bit. I'm going to be ramping it back up over the next week. A bunch of stuff rattling around in my head, I need to get it organized. :-)

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  3. Say, whatever happened with the coup at Mr. Jefferson's Academical Village? Any follow-up on that tragedy? Has the business school exerted hegemony?

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    1. No, last I heard the University's Board of Visitors restored the President to her position and issued an apology for their actions. I believe things are back on track at UVa.

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