One of the most appalling aspects of the Republican Medicare reform was the provision that paid private insurers more than the medicare administration to administer health care for elderly Americans. The worst abuse of this option is made by private fee for service plans which are just like medicare except less efficient.
Robert Pear in the NYT7/5/07
Reporst that about one fifth of Medicare recipients use private management, about one fifth of them fee for service plans and the cost per patient of private fee for service plans is 19% higher then the cost of the same service from the medicare administration. The estimated cost of medicare for FY 2006 is $ 396,347,000,000 making the advantage disadvantage just from fee for service plans over $3,000,000,000.
Ouch.
Of course the big bucks are wasted on private non fee for service plans which are much more common.
Also recipients complain.