Given the current discussion on healthcare I thought these numbers might
be interesting to some members.
Medicaid:
1972-1988: The number of recipients remained statistically steady,
hovering about 20 million.
By 1998: That numbers doubles to around 40 million recipients
Today that number is around 52 million people.
1 in 5 dollars in the health care system are paid for with medicaid
dollars. 1 in 5. That means 20% of the healthcare cost in this country
are supported by tax dollars just in this one program.
Medicare: currently covers about 42 million people
57% of the money spent in medicare goes to fund inpatient care.
The number of tax paying individuals per medicare recipient is declining
rapidly, which means more burden on each individual tax payer to fund
the program.
The largest funding resource is the general budget, with 41% of total
medicare costs coming form general funding. Only 40% of cost comes from
payroll taxes, and the remaining 19% from premium payments, the states,
and taxes on social security income.
Medicare and Medicaid together cover about 94 million people. These
programs together account for nearly 50% of all healthcare expenditures
in the US. The government funds 50% of the healthcare received in the
country, compared to only 25% when the programs were first enacted. The
governments involvement in paying healthcare costs has doubled as a
percentage to total US health care expenditures since enacted. The
governments role has gotten bigger, while health care costs increase.
Correlation, as the percentage of healthcare costs paid for by the
government has increased, so has the cost of that healthcare.
On top of that, the government spends more per patient on administrative
costs then do private insurers, meaning government programs are less
efficient at what they do.
Enough said.
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