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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (70351)	4/30/2014 1:14:22 PM
From: i-node	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

>> The government is an "entity". >> And with government sponsored insurance like Medicare, Medicaid, CHAMPUS, CHIPS, federal flood insurance, etc., etc., etc. the government is on the hooks for the costs and payments. >> Q --- Are you claiming that none of the above are "insurance"? Or that the government is not an "entity"? Government is an entity. I am not addressing property and casualty insurance through government because I don't know anything about how it is handled. I do know about Medicare and Medicaid because I have worked with those extensively over the last 20 years. With Medicaid there is no transfer of risk at all from the covered entity. It is a welfare program. The covered person does not pay anything for it. The taxpayers do. The amount of "risk" to the taxpayer is 100%, always (other than the occasional minimal copay mentioned earlier), and it is never on anyone BUT the taxpayers, therefore there is no transfer of risk. Medicare and Champus are different from Medicaid. Medicare involves a de minimus transfer of risk, but substantially is a welfare program. While people pay into the system, it is nowhere near enough, and the taxpayers are on the hook for some 50 Trillion as a result of the actuarial shortfall. In addition, providers who accept Medicare must take huge writeoffs of their charges and the program is effectively subsidized by commercial insurance companies, who then pass those costs through to taxpayers yet again. So, Medicare is different, but in substantial part is not insurance but a payment program. An argument can be made that Medicare is hybrid, in that it does contain some element of risk management, but the welfare payments aspect is far more substantial than the risk management aspect. So, you can take that how you want it. But all Medicaid/CHIPS is welfare, NOT insurance. The old Champus does not exist any longer, technically, as it has been replaced by Tricare. Tricare is available in many varieties and I don't really won't to get into those details.