garylouisville said...
It is going to cost millions of dollars per year just to pay for the Obamacare bureaucracy.
C_G_K said...
More like Billions. I read somewhere, although I have not confirmed it, that the cost of the new bureaucracy alone is equal to the cost (under the old system) of covering the 30 million new people that will be covered under Obamacare.
Both Garylousiville and C_G_K have talking points used by Republicans, however, there is no fact to back up those ascertains. Turns out that facts turn those talking points on their heads. As the government run programs are much more efficient than the private models (funny what happens when you take 'profit' out of the equation, huh?). While Obamacare isn't fully implemented yet, Medicare and Social Security are two government run programs that can be compared to private plans:
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"Medicare Has Controlled Costs Better Than Private Insurance
According to CMS, for common benefits, Medicare spending rose by an average of 4.3 percent each year between 1997 and 2009, while private insurance premiums grew at a rate of 6.5 percent per year."
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"Medicare is still more cost-efficient than private insurance
Last year, both the Congressional Budget Office and Standard & Poor's reported that the growth of costs in Medicare has slowed significantly, much more slowly that the growth of costs for private care.
Despite competition and choice in the private insurance system, Medicare spending has grown more slowly than private insurance premiums for comparable coverage for more than 30 years. What explains Medicare’s sustained cost advantage over private insurance?
Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance. And Medicare has considerable negotiating leverage with providers as a result of its huge enrollment."
nice graphsource-----------------
"Unlike some other public programs Social Security is efficient, with not much fat to cut.
The universally unpleasant options for reform are a testament to Social Security's efficiency. It's a simple transfer program, with administrative costs that amount to less than 0.9 percent of total spending. There's not much fat to cut."
Which brings us to Social Security's financial "crisis." The issue isn't that Social Security is spending too much or that we're living too long. It's that we're not having enough children (or letting in enough immigrants). As Stephen C. Goss, the system's chief actuary, has written, Social Security projects an imbalance "because birth rates dropped from three to two children per woman." That means there are fewer young people paying for the old people."
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