At least in Medicare, there are quite a few costs which go into the
overhead of private insurance which are not counted in Medicare. See:
http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/08/26/medicare-more-efficient-than-private-insurance/
Analysis in this article demonstrates that the overhead is actually
lower with private insurance than with Medicare on a per patient basis.
And as for the streamlined processing of Medicare, this is not done by a
government agency but contracted out by CMS to private processors, in my
case here in the DC area, it's Highmark Medicare Services
Rev. Stewart Marshall wrote:
Part of it is lower overhead.
It is why some charities devote over 90% to the clients instead of
60-70 %
I know this is going to sound biased but Lutheran World Relief, and
Bethesda (both Lutheran Charities) have very low overheads. Why?
Lower staff costs. The directors of our charities have salaries that
are in the low 100's. No million $ salaries for our guys. So with
their salaries being lower the staff salaries will be lower on
comparison.
Plus streamlined processing of everything.
A governmental insurance agency is not about pleasing its investors,
it is not about looking good. (Costs of buildings is one huge
difference.)
In church terms it is called stewardship of monies. They have to be
better stewards as the price for not being so, is much higher.
Stewart
At 03:36 PM 3/2/2010, you wrote:
I suspect that the government overhead is not properly counted, e.g.
the real estate occupied by the program administrators, etc. If it
really is only 3%, no wonder government health care is so bad. What
is there about government administration that is so marvelous that
the private sector can't do?
Fred Holmes
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