A reader of my last post, “Medicare:  Young vs Old”, provided a link to an wonkish article on U.S. health care spending and how it slowed down to record lows from 2010 to 2011. The article is titled, Deceleration in U.S. healthcare costs continues“, and it shows that, once again, Medicare is more efficient than the under-65 private health insurance system.

The central facts in the report are in this paragraph:

Over the year ending April 2011, healthcare costs covered by commercial insurance increased by 7.13%, as measured by the S&P Healthcare Economic Commercial Index. Medicare claim costs rose at an annual rate of 2.48%, as measured by the S&P Healthcare Economic Medicare Index. With April’s data, the Medicare index posted another record low annual growth rate in its six-year history.

If Medicare can hold that amazingly low spending growth rate, that bodes well for the future of the program. And given that people covered by Medicare are much older (and probably sicker) than people in the under-65 market, the difference between the two growth rates is kind of shocking to me.

It is common knowledge that when the economy is bad, people don’t go to the doctor – even for checkups and routine exams. But I  think the slow down in spending for people under 65 is also due to their changing health insurance coverage. More and more working people have health insurance plans with deductibles of $2,500 or $5,000.  This definitely makes people think twice about getting medical care, especially things like elective surgery.

But why are seniors getting less care when they don’t have big deductibles and co-insurance? (Ninety percent of seniors have more coverage than just Medicare.) It would be interesting to know if anyone has studied seniors with Medicare supplements and if they have been going to the doctor less. Those folks have excellent coverage and almost no co-pays, so the bad economy should not keep them from getting medical care. They have paid for excellent coverage, so why not use it?

An interesting study would be to talk to seniors to ask them if they’ve been going to the doctor less, or if they have put off tests, procedures, or surgery.

Health care expenditures would double for the elderly in every state by 2022 if the Republican plan for Medicare is implemented. This is the finding of a detailed analysis of the Ryan plan for turning Medicare into a voucher program where the government’s cost would be fixed, leaving seniors to cover more of their health care costs.

According to the report by the US Congress Joint Economic Committee, if Medicare remains as is, Seniors in Arizona can expect to pay, on average, $5,364 out-of-pocket for their health care costs in 2022. Under the Ryan voucher version of Medicare, seniors in Arizona can expect to pay out $10,906 in 2022.

Analysis of the Ryan plan compared to traditional Medicare was carried out by the US Congress Joint Economic Committee. The report provides a state-by-state analysis of the Republican proposal’s impact on the health care costs of the typical 65-year-old in 2022. The report finds that the Republican plan for Medicare will double the out-of-pocket health care expenses of the elderly in every state, with some paying over $7,000 more than what they would have paid under traditional Medicare.

Excerpts from the committee report:

Under the Republican plan, Medicare will no longer function as a health insurance provider. Instead, Medicare beneficiaries will only receive a payment that they could use to purchase private health insurance. Medicare beneficiaries will bear the full brunt of all remaining health care expenses not covered by their insurance provider. Moreover, the Republican plan reopens the “donut hole,” which is the gap in Medicare Part D that had forced beneficiaries to pay 100 percent of their drug costs after they exceeded an initial coverage limit and until they qualified for catastrophic coverage. As a consequence, millions of older Americans will pay higher prescription drug costs.

Medicare is a lifeline for older Americans. The Republican Medicare plan will force millions of elderly Americans to pay more for medical care and could accelerate the rise in health care costs. More ominously, the Republican plan steers Medicare away from the goal the program has aspired to achieve for nearly five decades, which is to provide older Americans with universal access to high‐quality, affordable health insurance in their retirement years.

Here is a compelling presentation explaining why U.S. health care is so expensive.  The graphics start with myths about why health care costs are high in the U.S.A.

This info is provided by medicalbillingandcoding.org.

Via: Medical Billing And Coding