Private insurance, most efficient , cost effective funding of Healthcare ?

The percentage of Americans with private health insurance has hit its lowest mark in 50 years, according to two new government reports. About 65 percent of non-elderly Americans had private insurance in 2008, down from 67 percent the year before, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's bad news," said Kenneth Thorpe, a health policy researcher at Emory University.

In the 1970s and early 1980s, nearly 80 percent of Americans had private coverage, according to CDC officials.

Some experts blamed the faltering economy and corporate decisions to raise health insurance premiums — or do away with employee coverage — as the main drivers of the recent data. They say coverage statistics for 2009 may look even worse.

However, public coverage of adults is rising in some states, due to programs like Medicaid expanding eligibility. So not all the adults without private coverage are uninsured, Thorpe said.

Indeed, the CDC estimated that about 44 million Americans were uninsured last year — nearly the same as CDC estimates for other recent years.

The CDC is one of at least three U.S. agencies that estimate the number of Americans without health insurance.
The U.S. Census Bureau puts out what is perhaps the best-known number, but that agency's 2008 estimate is not due out until August.

Like the Census Bureau, the CDC's estimate is based on a survey. The CDC interviewed about 75,000 Americans last year, asking if they were uninsured at the time. About 15 percent said yes, leading to the estimate that about 44 million Americans were uninsured.

The drop in non-elderly adults with private health insurance was statistically significant, but the drop in children without private coverage was not. Health officials noted that public coverage of children has risen dramatically in the last ten years, and now more than one in three children are covered by a public plan.

The CDC also reported on insurance coverage in the 20 largest states, and found the percent of uninsured people ranged from 3 percent in Massachusetts to 23 percent in Texas. Lack of health insurance was greatest in the South and West.

Private coverage rates for people under age 65 ranged from 79 percent in Massachusetts to 56 percent in Florida, the CDC reported.

Everywhere we look it is the private, not the public, that has proven bloated, inefficient and corrupt.

A recent BBC investigation revealed that private military contractors in Iraq had "lost, stolen, or not properly accounted for" at least $23 billion in taxpayer funds.

A few months ago, Chicago privatized its public parking meters and the cost of an hour of parking promptly rose by 200 percent!

In the 1960s, when Canada shifted to a single public health insurer from a system dominated by private companies, per capita health care costs in Canada were about the same as they were in the United States. Today, Canada's public health system delivers first-rate health care to all Canadians for far less than our private system costs to provide care for less than 80 percent of Americans.

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5) VA patients had more records and more visits. It took one and a hlaf times longer to go through the VA pts' charts. This is a major confounder. The authors also admit to this. Also VA patients also go to a single location. Easier follow up, less switching doctors etc. This also skews the data

From personal experience at the VA and a major university hospital, I can tell you that there is an incredible difference in the kind of care you get in the hospital at the VA compared to the other university hospital. And it's not just me. I have not heard a single medical student, resident or physician who works at both systems say they view the care to be better at the VA. I have heard probably 50 times just this year just how slowly things move and how the care just isnt as good at the VA.

I agree that the preventative health care that you get at the VA is much better than nothing. But if every system worked like the VA we would just be bringing good parts of our health care system down to the lowest common denomenator.

Perhaps though, just the VA that I work at sucks