According to AMA’s National Health Insurance Report Card, Medicare denies 6.85 percent of its claims, higher than any private insurer (Aetna was second, denying 6.80 percent of its claims), and more than double any private insurer’s average.
What’s fascinating is that The American Medical Association (AMA) has endorsed a public option, despite the fact that “some member physicians at the group’s annual meeting [in June] likened the notion to communism.”
The Obama administration repeats ad nauseum that we need a government option to “keep insurance companies honest” and to make sure they don’t deny anyone coverage. Well what does one say about the fact that Medicare denies more claims than private insurers?
President Obama has promised that if we like our health insurance we can keep it. But will those who are forced into the public option–which has been estimated to be minimum of tens of millions of currently insured Americans in addition to those “46 million” currently uninsured–be satisfied with their care given that the government program Medicare’s denial of claims outranks any private insurer’s?
AMA is effectively endorsing a public plan that is the largest denier of claims. How the public option would provide health care to patients is hard to understand.
David Weinberger currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm
Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and John Barrasso (R-WY) talk about the Medicare cuts used to fund Obamacare in the latest Senate Doctor’s Show:
Click here to view the embedded video.President Obama has claimed that he will fund his new plan in part by preventing waste through Medicare. Cutting waste out of the system would be good policy. We are all for slowing the growth of Medicare, but those savings should be used for deficit reduction, not another entitlement.
Further, aside from the CBO estimate that this health care plan will cost $823 Billion, health care program estimates are always low. As Senator Coburn points out, Obamacare will lead to a trillion dollar growth in government as the cost is paid for through higher taxation and cuts to Medicare.
Once again we are talking about more government control and less freedom. Is it any wonder that opposition to the left’s health care proposals has risen to a new high: 56 percent (see this Rasmussen Report)?
Obamacare inevitably will result in bigger government. And, ultimately, we will all have to pay for it.
David Weinberger currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm