On Sep 3, 4:17*pm, Brent <tetraethylleadREMOVET...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-03, erschroedin...@gmail.com <erschroedin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> LOL. What in the US federal government runs as lean as 15% overhead?
>
> > Uh, Medicare's overhead is 3% while private insurance companies run
> > around 15%.
>
> Cite? *I'll wager if those numbers weren't pulled out of your ass that
> government math was used to create them.
>

According to the latest annual report of the Medicare board of
trustees (these reports are required by law), Medicare spent $431.5
billion dollars in 2007. Of this amount, $6.3 billion was
administrative expenditures (or overhead). If we do the math, we
determine that Medicare’s overhead was 1.5 percent of its
expenditures. Other data presented in the trustees report indicate
Medicare’s overhead was about 2 percent throughout this decade, about
2 percent during the 1990s, and about 3 percent in the 1980s.

During the last three or four decades, the comparable figure for
health insurance companies has been 20 percent while the comparable
figure for self-insured firms has been about 10 percent. I think it is
safe to say all reasonable people would agree that 2 percent is
“lower” than 20 percent and 10 percent.


Among experts who publish in peer-reviewed journals, the 2-percent
figure for Medicare is widely (probably universally) accepted. I offer
two examples of expert opinion from the conservative side of the
health care reform debate: the Lewin Group, and a coalition of
organizations and individuals that signed an open letter to Congress
in 1999.

The Lewin Group is a consulting firm which is on record criticizing
single-payer proponents. It often makes unjustifiably favorable
assumptions about the cost-cutting abilities of health insurance
companies. It was purchased by United Health Group last year. It uses
the 2-percent figure to estimate Medicare’s overhead costs and the
overhead costs of Medicare-like systems (cf the Lewin Group’s reports
for the states of California and Colorado).

In 1999, a coalition of conservative and middle-of-the road groups and
individuals signed an open letter to Congress begging Congress to
raise Medicare’s administrative spending level to the level “found in
the private sector” so that Medicare would be better equipped to
function like a managed care insurance company. The coalition included
the Heritage Foundation, the former Health Insurance Association of
America (the trade group that represented the non-HMO wing of the
health insurance industry), the American Enterprise Institute, the
Concord Coalition, and Wellpoint Health Networks.

This coalition stated that Medicare’s overhead was less than 2
percent. Here is how they put it: “The latest report of the Medicare
trustees points out that HCFA’s administrative expenses represented
only 1 percent of the outlays of the Hospital Insurance trust fund
[which finances Part A] and less than 2 percent of the Supplementary
Medical Insurance trust fund [which at that time financed Part
B]” (Heritage Foundation et al., “Open letter to Congress and the
executive: Crisis facing HCFA and millions of Americans,” Health
Affairs 1999;18(1):8-10, 8). Obviously, the average of these two trust
funds comes to less than 2 percent.


> >> Your 'successful' cash for clunkers program seems to be running around
> >> 33% overhead.http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/...ita-doan-cash/
> > Great, someone who believes in Fox News and Santa Claus.
>
> Sorry, no. But those who believe 'cash for clunkers' is a good program
> obviously believe in Santa Claus... that the 'toys' come out of the
> ether or built by elves with magic or whatever that no resources were
> taken from other people to provide it.

Oh, the right-wing "taxes are theft" screed. Well, Doofus, if you
don't want to be a part of a society and pay for its upkeep, LEAVE.