New Numbers on Cost Shifting
A study for America's Health Insurance Plans (hardly a disinterested party) by Milliman finds the total amounts to just shy of $89 billion dollars annually. The cost shift from commercial insurers to compensate for Medicare patients in hospitals was $35 billion in 2006. In 2007, the cost shift from commercial insurers to compensate doctors who treat Medicaid patients was nearly $24 billion. As a result, the average family of four pays nearly 11 percent more than they otherwise would pay, for a cost of $1,788 per year.
I think these numbers are larger than what I have seen before.
Whatever the numbers, it is clear that the problem is not trivial.
The problem is going to get huge due to the recent expansion of SCHIP (which often pays Medicaid rates) and Obama’s plan to expand Medicaid. To say nothing of the desire of many Congressional Democrats to lower the age of elligibility for Medicare.