Medicare

BernsteinAccess to affordable health care has been a recurring topic in current political discussions. Merton C. Bernstein, leading health insurance expert and law professor emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis says that Medicare is the most practical platform for both extending coverage to everyone and taming medical cost inflation. He is available to discuss the candidates’ health care proposals.

“We are headed into a time when a confluence of changes are going to lead to a perfect storm, making us finally realize that our health care system needs a major overhaul,” says Timothy D. McBride, Ph.D., leading health economist and professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. “As the elderly population doubles between now and about 2030, projections are that we will see at least a doubling of the costs of the federal and state health and retirement programs,” he says. “That will likely be when the perfect storm hits. But if we miss it then, we will likely have missed all the storm clouds for the foreseeable future.”

The Olin Business School now offers a major in healthcare management. Professors from both the medical and business schools will teach courses to both business and non-business majors. The degree will help develop a strong grounding in all aspects of the health care industry as well as in the science behind medicine.

The Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis now offers a major in healthcare management. Professors from both the medical and business schools will teach courses to both business and non-business majors. The degree will help develop a strong grounding in all aspects of the healthcare industry as well as in the science behind medicine.

“Universal health care is getting the attention it deserves, but unfortunately, the proposals receiving the most attention ignore the ‘Big Leak,'” the enormous non-benefit costs incurred by health care providers who must match their billions of billings with thousands of differing private health care plans,” says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. “Putting everyone under the Medicare umbrella would eliminate that leak,” he says. Bernstein is available to discuss current universal health care proposals as well as the Medicare-for-all option.

The Bush administration’s plan to push through health savings accounts is limited in how much it can lower healthcare costs, according to a business professor in the Olin School of Business at Washington University. He says that health savings accounts could work for some things – if the relationship between most doctors and patients changes, and if there were greater acceptance of the variety of ways to keep people healthy. More…

Medicare Part D decisions can be confusingDuring the next six months, Medicare recipients will need to enroll in one of the new prescription drug coverage plans. But with the deluge of information about Medicare Part D, some reliable and some not, “seniors find themselves in an environment of fear and confusion,” says Edward F. Lawlor, Ph.D., a Medicare expert and dean of the School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. “There is so much noise about the prescription drug program, but people are not getting clear, simple information. Many seniors aren’t even entertaining making the proper plan choice.”

Bernstein”Imagine an electrical appliance industry with plugs of 9,000 different shape and sizes that need one of 9,000 matching sockets to work. Preposterous as that is, that’s the “design” of American health insurance – tens of thousands of medical care providers must plug their billions of billings into thousands of differing insurance policies,” says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Coles Professor of Law Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis. “This wasteful design has its silver lining, though. Eliminating administrative costs through universal Medicare coverage, or Medicare-for-All, would save as much as $280 to $300 billion a year, enough to pay for covering the 45 million uninsured. ”

The urban legends about managed care convey a sense that managed care often leads to early death. However, the business methods employed by managed care frequently result in reduced cost for the companies and the individuals enrolled in the programs. Because of the potential savings, the trend has been to encourage Medicare enrollees to use managed care programs. A recent study by a professor in the business school Washington University in St. Louis and a colleague suggests that it’s not managed care that increases mortality; it’s lack of drug coverage. The study suggests that a one percent increase in the number of people enrolled in Medicare Managed Care without drug coverage would result in an additional 5,100 deaths among the elderly population of the United States in one year.

People who are enrolled in Medicare Choice HMO plans with drug coverage die at about the same rate as those in traditional fee-for-service Medicare plans, but mortality rates for those in Medicare HMO plans without drug coverage are substantially higher. That’s the conclusion of a recent study done by Gautam Gowrisankaran, Ph.D., an assistant professor of economics at the Olin School of Business of Washington University in St. Louis, with University of Minnesota colleague Robert J. Town. The researchers’ estimates imply that a 10-percentage point shift in coverage from fee-for-service to HMO plans without drug coverage could result in 51,000 additional deaths per year among the elderly.