Could Elon Musk Take on Healthcare and Healthcare Insurers and Lower Costs?
Healthcare and healthcare insurance was not cheap a couple of years ago and not cheap last year either. If anything, prices have increase resulting in higher Commercial Health Insurance costs. Then too deductibles for Medicare increase ~$10. Supplemental also increased. The costs for Medicare and supplemental are less than Commercial Healthcare Insurance.
We are talking about the same topic today as what we talked about 10 and more years ago. Still not relief except during the pandemic when Biden lowered costs for ACA coverage using various policies. Now that has ended and people are left with the same old same old method of gaining healthcare.
Some like Jill Burcum (who wrote the following piece to the Editorial page of the Minnesota Star Tribune) are taking issue with the never ending and increasing costs of healthcare. There are solutions to this issue. However, the government has not yet tackled it as cost save issue. Healthcare providers and suppliers of medicines, etc, do not seem to be in favor.
One solution? Medicare for all is certainly a solution. Single Payor is also a solution. Both are governmental programs which the healthcare industry and some economic gurus would take issue with a change so drastic. Some countries which have single payer healthcare have long wait times for care.
I am rambling here. We do need to do better than commercial healthcare which is expensive and which many people can not afford the premiums for and to which a Republican government is getting ready to whack those less fortunate who have “no” political power. Read about Jill Burcum’s predicament. It does not sound like commercial healthcare insurance works for her.
Will Elon Musk’s efficiency group have the guts to take on healthcare insurers?
The Minnesota Star Tribune, December 2024
The coldhearted reaction to UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder should spur meaningful health care system improvements. Musk’s team could or should see Medicare Advantage plans as an opportunity for reform, savings.
The cost of the sleep study my doctor ordered this month put me over my health insurance policy’s annual deductible. But that pronouncement, relayed by a cheerful staffer checking my records, triggered a different health problem: a temporary blood pressure spike induced by exasperation.
“A lot of good that’s going to do me.”
I remember thinking while rolling my eyes. After months of paying for non-preventive care out of pocket, I’d hit the dollar amount at which insurance starts paying for the bulk of my care. The problem is that there are only two weeks left of 2024. On Jan. 1, consumers like me start over again meeting the yearly deductible.
The process reminds me of why I don’t enjoy casinos, where it always feels like the “house” has the advantage over bettors. But unlike those gleaming gaming palaces, health consumers don’t have a choice in whether they want to play. If you need health coverage, and everyone does, this is our system. And it’s unlikely to change in far-reaching fashion anytime soon. Even health-reform-minded Democratic presidential administrations have delivered incremental progress at best.
That feeling of being powerless can stay bottled up only so long. Unfortunately, this shared frustration boiled over in alarming fashion earlier this month. after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Callous social media comments were regrettably eclipsing sympathy for the victim’s family. Congress, the incoming Trump administration and the new “government efficiency” advisory group led by Elon Musk ought to take note of this coldhearted reaction and see it as a mandate to take meaningful action.
While sweeping health care reforms ― like moving to the “single-payer” systems that other countries use ― aren’t realistic right now, there are still sensible improvements that would deliver taxpayer savings and ensure that health care dollars go toward patient care rather than insurers’ bottom lines. Taking steps like this versus doing nothing would help assuage the anger erupting after Thompson’s death. For the example I’ll highlight here shortly, there’s even a detailed plan from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), an independent advisory group to Congress. Medicare, of course, is the federal program covering care mainly for Americans 65 and older.
To be absolutely clear, ire over a health system that many feel ill-served by does not justify Thompson’s execution, or the revolting embrace by some of Luigi Mangione. the 26-year-old charged with Thompson’s murder, as a hero. In a nation of laws, worthwhile change comes through the democratic process, not at gunpoint. That’s what makes America great, even if the pace of reform is slower than ideal.
So let me explain how Musk and his efficiency teammate Vivek Ramaswamy enter this chat. Let’s consider an obvious though politically daunting target for them.
It involves Medicare, which has 67.8 million enrollees and cost $839 billion in 2023. The program represents 14 percent of total federal spending, reports the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Its sheer size likely makes it an attractive target for Musk and other cost-cutters.
The lazy way to target spending would be to reduce benefits or raise the eligibility age. But drilling down into how the program works could also deliver serious savings without diminishing seniors’ care, which should be the priority. This wouldn’t be easy, but a March 2024 MedPAC report offers a road map, specifically Chapter 12.
It highlights cost concerns about Medicare Advantage (MA), which gives enrollees “the option of receiving benefits from private plans” ― such as UnitedHealthcare or Humana ― rather than the traditional Medicare program. For those choosing MA, the federal government pays insurers a fixed monthly sum for each enrollee’s care versus the traditional practice of paying per service.
As MedPAC notes, “plans should have greater incentives . . . to deliver more efficient care.” In reality, “Medicare spends an estimated 22 percent more for MA enrollees than it would spend” for traditional Medicare enrollees. That difference “translates into a projected $83 billion in 2024.”
Adding to the concerns: The percentage of Medicare enrollees in an MA program has risen rapidly, from 19% in 2007 to 54% in 2024.
“Will Elon Musk’s efficiency group have the guts to take on health insurers?” Jill Burcum The Minnesota Star Tribune editorial page,
CMS Releases Proposed 2026 Payment Policy Updates for Medicare Advantage and Part D Programs, CMS
HHS Announces Cost Savings for 64 Prescription Drugs Thanks to the Medicare Prescription Drug Inflation Rebate Program Established by the Biden-Harris Administration’s Lower Cost Prescription Drug Law, CMS