Medicaid changes
Here is a novel idea to fiscally help with our insurance crisis in Indiana. At the present time, we spend 4.386 billion dollars on Medicaid. According to the 2003 census, there were ~650,000 Indiana residents living in poverty. This included adults and children in single living conditions and families.
If we would eliminate all the government agencies associated with the Medicaid program and just have one simple application process to enroll the eligible residents, we could eliminate a huge amount of overhead and bureaucracy.
The money currently spent amounts to over 6000 dollars per individual that falls into the poverty range. You can certainly purchase a private health insurance policy or a family policy for less than this amount.
The State could solicit bids from the major insurers and allow them to provide the coverage just like others who have insurance through their companies. The best bid would receive the contract. I am sure that if you offered 3-4 billion dollars to the company, they would jump at the opportunity.
These indigent patients would have the same type of coverage as the rest of Indiana residents with private insurance and would save the State money in ways other than just the Medicaid expenditures.
We have overly complicated the system with bureaucracy and red tape. There is plenty of money to insure everyone with near equal coverage. We need legislatures who are willing to make some radical changes.
If we would eliminate all the government agencies associated with the Medicaid program and just have one simple application process to enroll the eligible residents, we could eliminate a huge amount of overhead and bureaucracy.
The money currently spent amounts to over 6000 dollars per individual that falls into the poverty range. You can certainly purchase a private health insurance policy or a family policy for less than this amount.
The State could solicit bids from the major insurers and allow them to provide the coverage just like others who have insurance through their companies. The best bid would receive the contract. I am sure that if you offered 3-4 billion dollars to the company, they would jump at the opportunity.
These indigent patients would have the same type of coverage as the rest of Indiana residents with private insurance and would save the State money in ways other than just the Medicaid expenditures.
We have overly complicated the system with bureaucracy and red tape. There is plenty of money to insure everyone with near equal coverage. We need legislatures who are willing to make some radical changes.
posted by Anonymous at 5:55 PM
4 Comments:
Hopefully this will correct another problem with the current Medicaid system -- no incentive to not over-utilize medical services. At a local optometry store, I encountered a man trying to obtain eyeglasses through Medicaid, but was told his prescription at .75 didn't qualify for Medicaid's requirement of at least 1.25. Basically he was getting glasses to make a fashion statement. There's an old saying, "If its free, I want it"
You apparantly have no idea how insurance companies operate. Medicaid pays out 97% of its funding in the form of payment to providers (3% admin costs). Insurance co's pay out 70-75% of funds avail to providers (11-15% admin costs and 8-15% profit margins retained).
As a provider who has previously complained about having to deal with insurance companies, you now advocate giving them the Medicaid program?
I am continually disappointed to hear advise that we turn our public responsibility over to private vendors rather than provide the leadership to develop an efficient model.
The appropriate response is that we need to make healthcare a priority in electing our public officials and hold them responsible for their actions.
As a society, we also need to start the diolog on how to live healthier life styles and take person responsibility for our health. (this is a topic for another blog)
You are misinformed about the medicaid expenditures and overhead costs. If you truly believe any government program this size runs with a 3% admin cost, you are naive.
The managed care medicaid made this even worse in the past 2 years.
I believe there is plenty of money, just too much waste. Spend a day in my billing office and you'll see for yourself
I believe publicly owned insurance companies profit margins are more like 5%. Your comparison is still difficult to make directly as insurers have a loss ratio, the amount of actual claims they pay out versus the premiums collected from members. The profit margin is the return on their investors capital which is at risk and has to cover a negative loss ratio should it occur. While Medicaid's administrative costs are certainly low (6% national average; Indiana is at 3.9%), their medical oversight is regarded as poor, and their reimbursement rates are so low that the actual costs of treating those patients in reality is shifted to other paying patients. The real problem facing Medicaid is the number of people receiving benefits has grown so dramatically over recent years due in large part to many employers and individuals dropping out of private insurance plans. It's a vicious circle...
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