Study: Public health insurance cheaper than private
Public health insurance, such as Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance Program, results in significantly lower health-care costs compared with private insurance, even when tax subsidies for the latter are thrown in, according to a study published by the journal Health Affairs. (Abstract here; full text here; chart summary of findings here.)
The savings were of particular advantage to consumers, the study found, because much of the savings occurred in consumers' out-of-pocket costs. But the study also found savings in costs paid by public insurers vs. private insurers.
Take a look and tell me what you think.
(Via Health Affairs blog)
Comments (1)
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True believers in capitalism will have a hard time accepting this, because for them it's a matter of faith that nothing works as well as the free market. For them, the phrase "socialized medicine" is a scare tactic.
But as I tell my students, free markets are the best way to allocate society's goods and services... except when they're not. The particular pathologies of private health insurance make it in many instances less, not more, efficient than public insurance. Sure enough, this study shows that it's not just the family's out-of-pocket cost that's lower under public insurance, it's also the overall cost, i.e. the cost to society.
So yeah, "socialized medicine," in the form of public health insurance, would raise taxes. But it'd lower costs overall. You'd think conservatives would like that.
Posted on June 25, 2008 11:48 AM