One Potential Cost of Medicare for All

Yekcidmij · Jul 11, 2019

Hospitals Stand to Lose Billions Under ‘Medicare for All’

An interesting point in the NYT about the potential costs and consequences of Medicare for All that could accrue to hospitals, perhaps rapidly.

Monk Brendan · Jul 11, 2019

Yekcidmij said:
Hospitals Stand to Lose Billions Under ‘Medicare for All’

An interesting point in the NYT about the potential costs and consequences of Medicare for All that could accrue to hospitals, perhaps rapidly.

Why not simply call it was it was always called until about 20 years ago?

Namely socialized medicine.

slav22 · Jul 11, 2019

Yekcidmij said:
Hospitals Stand to Lose Billions Under ‘Medicare for All’

An interesting point in the NYT about the potential costs and consequences of Medicare for All that could accrue to hospitals, perhaps rapidly.

If I understand it properly, it says that American hospitals are complaining that their services will not be as overpriced as are right now?

MayYouBeBlessed · Jul 11, 2019

Yekcidmij said:
Hospitals Stand to Lose Billions Under ‘Medicare for All’

An interesting point in the NYT about the potential costs and consequences of Medicare for All that could accrue to hospitals, perhaps rapidly.

Hospitals are overpriced with a ratio of 10-1000

Madicare for all, those crooked hospitals willhave to be reeasonable in prices

Yekcidmij · Jul 11, 2019

MayYouBeBlessed said:
Hospitals are overpriced with a ratio of 10-1000

Madicare for all, those crooked hospitals willhave to be reeasonable in prices

Maybe. But I wonder how the budgets of those hospitals work? I would suppose that a major, and permanent, decrease in revenue would have to have some knock-off effects to their operations. Will they hire less? Lay people off? Offer less services? The NYT article suggests all of that. I doubt you just decrease hospital's revenues without the consequence of them spending less on the services they offer.

Yekcidmij · Jul 11, 2019

slav22 said:
If I understand it properly, it says that American hospitals are complaining that their services will not be as overpriced as are right now?

I think it's saying that there are consequences to bringing in less revenue. Less revenue means less spending. For hospitals, that means less spending on the services they provide. I doubt they just lower prices without any other adjustments in their budgeting and operations. They may not be able to without bankrupting themselves. Seems like basic income vs. expenditure to me.

Hospital profit margins generally aren't very high (operating margin average is something like 2.5% Hospital operating margins dropped 39% over 3 years ). So yea, if you decrease their revenue they will spend less, in some way or another, on the services they provide to patients.

I think for current Medicare-for-all proposals to work, government may need to take over funding of hospital operations in addition to patient payments - at least if the program is meant to provide the same or better services from hospitals.

98cwitr · Jul 11, 2019

MayYouBeBlessed said:
Hospitals are overpriced with a ratio of 10-1000

Madicare for all, those crooked hospitals willhave to be reeasonable in prices

You get what you pay for; results in long waits and poor service.

MayYouBeBlessed · Jul 11, 2019

98cwitr said:
You get what you pay for; results in long waits and poor service.

Not really. Medicare for all still pays decently, not outrageously

98cwitr · Jul 11, 2019

MayYouBeBlessed said:
Not really. Medicare for all still pays decently, not outrageously

As any veteran what they think about the VA.

MayYouBeBlessed · Jul 11, 2019

98cwitr said:
As any veteran what they think about the VA.

It's very different. Ask any Canadian or Norwegian.

98cwitr · Jul 11, 2019

MayYouBeBlessed said:
It's very different.

How so? That's seems to be an obvious example of what Americans should expect if healthcare was nationalized.

MayYouBeBlessed · Jul 11, 2019

98cwitr said:
How so? That's seems to be an obvious example of what Americans should expect if healthcare was nationalized.

No. Compare with Canada, Norway etc. VA Is mockery

hedrick · Jul 11, 2019

The article assumes (until the last paragraph) that reimbursement rates would stay the same as under Medicare now. That's not possible. You can't just replace all private insurance with current Medicare unchanged. A real single-payer system would need to be based on a major redesign. At the moment Medicare can get away without paying full costs. In a single-payer system it couldn't and wouldn't.

It's not practical to do that kind of full replacement quickly. So what would actually happen is a very long period of incremental changes. Probably if you could start from scratch you could do better, but I just don't see that happening.

It's certainly possible that the number of hospitals would go down, with new intermediate institutions to handle things that don't absolutely need the most expensive care. That's already happening to some extent.

One Potential Cost of Medicare for All

Presbyterian, Polymath

Well-Known Member

New Member

Active Member

Presbyterian, Polymath

Presbyterian, Polymath

Lord forgive me

Active Member

Lord forgive me

Active Member

Lord forgive me

Active Member

Senior Veteran

Similar threads