Reply #47: The only reason Medicare works

[customerserviceguy]

is because they cost-shift to other patients. Medicare reimbursements have been dropping relative to the costs of care, and the providers just third-party it over to the people who can afford to pay. And that means those who have insurance.

Maybe that's why we see premiums going up, that people actually get a gander at when they get the bill for a month's COBRA. The whole system has to be completely rebuilt from the ground up, but I've not seen that in the Obama stimulus plan, there's only a plan to help laid off people with their COBRA, and just some plans to computerize paperwork. I've worked in a lot of companies that had computerized systems, yet were as bungling a bureaucracy as any you could imagine.