This is a FAQ entry. See the main FAQ index for others.
There is overwhelming evidence that public programs exert greater control over health care spending than private insurers.
- If the Medicare age is raised to 67, it will save the government $5.7 billion in 2014 butcost others twice that amount.
- Government payments to private, comprehensive Medicare plans (Medicare Advantage) have been well above the cost of the program’s public option (traditional Medicare) for years.
- The rate of growth in per person spending by private health care plans has exceeded that of Medicare for 40 years.
- Private, per person growth in physician spending has exceeded that of Medicare in the last decade, if not longer.
- The CBO has scored a public option as cheaper relative to a private-only exchange system.
- The CBO and other organizations have scored single payer proposals as cost savings (system wide) relative to the status quo.
- The VA (and Medicaid) purchase drugs far more cheaply than Medicare’s private drug plans.
- Our wealthy, peer nations have a greater proportion of their health spending funded publicly and spend dramatically less on health care than we do, even as a proportion of their economies.
- Listen to our podcast on this topic.
- There are arguments in favor of private insurance, but they are not based on lower spending or spending growth.
- FEHBP program spending has grown at about the same rate as Medicare’s. However, FEHBP has gotten more generous.
- Even more evidence from Diane Archer on the Health Affairs blog.
