Last month, at the Health Access 2018 conference, Elizabeth Warren decried rising out-of-pocket costs required in employer-sponsored health plans and demanded that a new round of healthcare reform "require private insurers to be just as affordable as public insurers like Medicare and Medicaid.” (I discussed the speech at some length here.)
That formulation struck me as problematic in several ways: 1) Medicaid and Medicare offer very different levels of affordability (except where they're merged for dual eligibles); 2) employer-sponsored insurance, on average, is "just as affordable" as Medicare and in fact provides better protection against crushing out-of-pocket costs than traditional Medicare; and 3) Warren bashed insurers alone for price-gouging without mentioning provider payment rates, which would have to be squashed down if commercial insurance were subject to stricter affordability mandates.
Perhaps, though, Warren had some inkling of the Medicare-for-all-who-need-or-want-it plan that was brewing at the Center for American Progress, released yesterday.
That formulation struck me as problematic in several ways: 1) Medicaid and Medicare offer very different levels of affordability (except where they're merged for dual eligibles); 2) employer-sponsored insurance, on average, is "just as affordable" as Medicare and in fact provides better protection against crushing out-of-pocket costs than traditional Medicare; and 3) Warren bashed insurers alone for price-gouging without mentioning provider payment rates, which would have to be squashed down if commercial insurance were subject to stricter affordability mandates.
Perhaps, though, Warren had some inkling of the Medicare-for-all-who-need-or-want-it plan that was brewing at the Center for American Progress, released yesterday.
