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Originally Posted by JoeRedskin
Also, I am curious. What would the costs involved be in simply expanding Medicaid to cover these 45 Million. In your opinion, would it be more or less than the costs anticipated by Obama's legislation.
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It's really tough to say without knowing what the reimbursement to hospitals would be under the government plan. My instinct says covering all 45 million under Medicaid would be cheaper.
However to cover the 45 million you'd have to raise the limit on the income level that qualifies people for Medicaid. In doing so, you'd end up covering a lot more than 45 million people, which would get exceedingly expensive.
But in a vacuum, if you covered the 45 million under Medicaid, I think it would be cheaper
for the government. However, as discussed in previous posts in this thread, Medicaid reimbursement to hospitals blows, and commercial insurance companies are asked to pay rates to hospitals high enough to cover the losses on Medicaid patients. Adding Medicaid patients (without boosting Medicaid reimbursement rates) would mean an even greater burden would be placed on commercial insurance companies.
Those of us who are insured through the Blue Crosses of the world would pay even higher premiums to make up for even more horrendous Medicaid reimbursement. So while the federal government saves money by covering the 45 million through Medicaid, the ultimate cost on the citizenship is the same.
That's the thing, no matter how you configure the reimbursement and coverage part of the equation, healthcare costs what it costs. You're just debating over who pays for it, and how much. The only way we can make the system better is by actually attacking the cost of delivering care.