More and more it seems that, when the government subsidizes health insurance, patients' share of health care costs go down.
The latest evidence: In the years immediately following the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid -- two programs that dramatically expanded government-sponsored health coverage -- patients’ share of out-of-pocket costs dropped by 40 percent, according to a December paper from Jeffrey Clemens, an economist at the University of California at San Diego. Out-of-pocket costs are what patients are responsible for paying on their own. In the case of insured patients, those costs can include copays and deductibles. Uninsured patients typically have to pay for all of their medical services “out-of-pocket.”
As Medicaid became more comprehensive, patients' out-of-pocket costs continued to drop, Clements said, ultimately falling 90 percent from their 1960 levels by 1980.
The study adds to a growing body of evidence that these government entitlement programs helped cut health-care cost burdens for struggling consumers. Just 16 percent of funding for personal health care came from out-of-pocket payments in 2003, down from 55 percent in 1960, according to a 2005 study from the Department of Health and Human Services.
And Medicaid alone kept at least 2.6 million people out of poverty in 2010, according to a recent paper in the Journal of Health Economics.
But you keep wailing... I'm sure the fact-free, source-free echo-chamber needs the business.
It's more than you've given... Let us know when you have something other than RNC-planted fact-free, source-free echo-chamber drivel. Perhaps more garbage from those unpaid bloggers at powerlineblog?
