So now we have all reached agreement that, whether you support the philosophy of the program or not, Social Security provides an example of a major federal government program that has been well run for the past 70 years despite warnings in the 30's that it was socialism and would lead to the downfall of the American system as we then knew it. The fact that there is currently a demographic challenge facing the program doesn’t repudiate the past successes realized by the beneficiaries. 13 million seniors and 1 million children are not living in poverty today as a direct result of the program. And, I for one, think Noona and Ompa have earned the right to retire with some dignity after 40-50 years of working service to America rather than having to labor until they drop into their graves. (But yes, they can work if they want to. “Welcome to Walmart.”)Now lets turn to another great success of American socialism (one that I am sure we can all agree on), the single-payer medical system for seniors - medicare. I am going to look at the program’s success from 3 areas, guaranteed access to medical care and providers, improved quality of life for seniors, and administrative efficiency and cost containment. Prior to medicare only half of American seniors had health insurance. The private insurance industry was either unable to provide coverage, or unwilling to accept the risk of insuring seniors in an affordable manner. And, worse, the greater the need (the sicker grandma was) the more unaffordable was the insurance. The federal government, through the guarantee of Medicare coverage, established protections for all seniors that ensure that everyone –including those battling costly illnesses– have access to covered services. Medicare also reduced the disparities in access to care among racial and ethnic groups, disparities which were widespread prior to enactment. With the financial burden of healthcare removed, studies show that seniors are far more likely to have a regular doctor and receive preventive care than the population at large, they are less likely to go without necessary prescriptions, and far less likely to postpone care until they are forced to go to a far more costly emergency room.
Medicare has also been instrumental in improving quality of life for seniors. Seniors are now living longer life spans as a result of medicare, and far more of those years are higher in quality as a result of regular preventative care. Medicare has also been another factor in reducing poverty since much of the expense of health care, especially insurance premiums and costs associated with serious illness, has been eliminated. The great debt that can often follow the death of life partner in the form of medical bills has been eliminated. The result is one less major area of worries for Nana and Papa.
Cost containment and efficiency is one area of medicare success that is rarely pointed out. Medicare has proved to be more successful than private insurance in controlling the growth rate of health care spending per enrollee. Average annual costs under medicare per patient has grown by 9.6% compared to 11.1% for private insurance companies between 1970 and the year 2000. A comparison of cumulative growth in per enrollee payments for personal health care between Medicare and private insurance shows that private insurers’ costs grew 44 percent more than Medicare from 1970 to 2000. In addition, the private health insurance sector administrative costs – 9.5 percent of total costs – significantly exceed Medicare’s 2 to 3 percent administrative spending. And you won’t believe this, but the farther away from the private market in health care, the better the financial performance. Original Medicare also outperforms Medicare health plans – for example, on average, Medicare Advantage plans spend 15 percent of their revenue on administrative costs, while some Medicare Advantage plans spend as much as 32 percent on administration.
A final indicator that Medicare is another great success of American Socialism is the tremendous popularity the program has among its beneficiaries. Just ask any politician if they want to mess with medicare benefits. Medicare stepped in where the free market refused or was unable to go. Despite the challenges of providing health care for the most needy, vulnerable segment of the population in healthcare terms, Medicare has financially outperformed the health insurance industry in the provision of care. This is why we need to support a single payer system for all Americans like most of the first world has today, including the elderly in this great country.
http://www.kff.org/medicare/index.cfm
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/collection/medicare
