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Wednesday, July 28, 20041)According to Rand, a nonpartisan think tank, up to half of those who enroll in Medicaid under such eligibility expansions already have private insurance but drop it — or are dropped by their employer — when they become eligible....this suggests that under the Kerry plan, taxpayers would spend $300 billion over 10 years to provide Medicaid coverage to as many as 18 million people who already have private coverage today. Draining 18 million paying, risk-spreading customers from private pools would make coverage even more expensive, causing even more workers to lose the coverage they now have. 2)Under the Kerry proposal, insurers would have to offer the same plans to both federal workers and those in the Kerry health alliance. Any plan that proves unprofitable in one would be taken away from the other, which could take away from federal workers the coverage they now enjoy 3)Like the Kerry proposal itself, Thorpe's widely cited cost estimate — $653 billion over ten years — does not withstand scrutiny. First, Thorpe's projections cover nine years, not ten. Second, they implausibly erase much of the cost by assuming the Kerry plan would so increase efficiency that taxpayers would get back 30 cents of every dollar spent. Ignoring savings projections and adding a tenth year, Thorpe's projections suggest the Kerry plan would cost $1.1 trillion over ten years, which most agree would require a broad-based tax increase. Read the whole thing, as they say. posted by Sydney on 7/28/2004 11:02:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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