As to the costs of healthcare in general, the first thing that has to happen is that we have to remove the 20,000,000 people who are here illegally who are receiving free care that the rest of us are paying for. Medicare and Medicaid fraud costs billions per year and needs to be dealt with. Single payer healthcare would be a disaster and the only way to combat that is to elect a govt that doesn’t use free giveaways to buy votes. Programs such as Health savings accounts and tax incentives to people who purchase their own health care might help as well.
Thanks for your ideas.
There are only about 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the US. Children to the age of 18 are eligible for healthcare coverage through the CHIP program, although the participation level is extremely low. Maybe from a fear of deportation. A few states allow undocumented immigrants to participate in Medicaid. Some can get care in So of the remaining 4 million undocumented immigrants, some of those do get primary care through some of the federally funded health care centers which have sliding fees based on income. Also, emergency care is provided to anyone in hospitals with emergency rooms.
So, that leaves 5.5-6 million illegal immigrants who aren’t getting medical care in the US. So, that leaves about 5 million who
are receiving unreimbursed healthcare in the US. Hate to say it, but those 5 million aren’t the reason healthcare costs are high.
Medicaid and Medicare billing errors are a real thing. Just not as significant as some would like you to believe. It is a big deal, I think improper billing of Medicare amounts to 10-12% of Medicare payments. However, over half of those are considered improper documentation. The general rule in medical billing is that if it isn’t documented, it wasn’t done.
Further more, if a Doc provides say a Level 5 service, but didn’t check all the right boxes in their record, then that visit may be downcoded to maybe a Level 3 service which would have 1/2 the reimbursement. The auditors don’t argue that the service wasn’t provided, only that every documentation data point wasn’t checked off. Kind of like not paying your mechanic for the oil change just because they didn’t enter it into your Maintenance Log. Never mind the empty oil containers and new filters on the engine.
Fraud does happen. I’ve actually participated in investigations against my peers as they were prosecuted for Medicaid Fraud. Fortunately, they no longer have a license. Even so, there is no more problems with fraud in the public programs than there is int he private programs. However, it isn’t the reason healthcare costs are increasing either.
I LOVE my health savings account. It doesn’t really lower healthcare costs, but it is the absolute best retirement vehicle available. No tax when the money is earned. No tax on the earnings. No tax when the money is spent on medical services or prescriptions.
A single payer system isn’t perfect and may have problems that aren’t anticipated, but right away it would save up to 25% of hospital and provider costs and likely save 10% on administrative overhead on the part of the payor. That would be real money.
