So Medicare currently pays private health insurers 14% more than its own average costs to provide coverage for anyone who wants to take it. This form of private Medicare is called Medicare Risk. It has been around for a long time. Rates were raised when Congress was foolish enough to pass the prescription drug coverage act. The theory was that these companies would provide care management and other services that would improve the health of the people who they insured and lower costs.

Now Wonks Anonymous actually thinks that there are times when we can save in the long run by spending more. He has rarely heard this view stated in the world of conservative health policy. In health care, we are told, the way to save money is to limit spending, then prices will go down.

Except that we need to pay more to private insurance companies because private enterprise is cheaper.

Which is fine except that it does not appear to have worked. Private Medicare plans just cost more. Wonks Anonymous is sure that this is a fine job creation program for claims adjudicators, actuaries and medical office billing staff but he works in this sector and he can assure the reader that we are pretty close to full employment over here. Of course it also creates employment for health insurance entrepreneurs but the contribution of these weasels to GNP is negative.

Wonks Anonymous works for a company that offers a Medicare Risk product. We offered this product before the changes and will continue to be able to offer the product if we are paid the same amount per member as Medicare currently pays. Wonks Anonymous feels that these high cost inefficient insurers, who require special treatment to "compete" ought to get off the dole and stop giving the rest of us a bad name.