Never Waste a (Design) Crisis

By KIM BELLARD The Wall Street Journal reported that the American Dental Association (ADA) opposes expanding Medicare to include dental benefits.  My reaction was, well, of course they do.  They apparently don’t care that at least half, and perhaps as many as two thirds, of seniors lack dental insurance, or that one in five seniors are missing all their teeth.  The ADA prefers a plan for low income Medicare beneficiaries only, although state Medicaid programs were already supposed to be that, with widely varying results between the states.  The ADA is following blindly in the AMA’s opposition to enactment of Medicare, ignoring how fruitful Medicare has turned out to be for physicians’ incomes.  It’s all about the money, of course; the ADA thinks dentists can get more money from private insurance, or directly from patients, than they would from Medicare, and they’re probably right.     As is typical for our healthcare system, good design is no match for interfering with the incomes of the people/organizations providing the care.  By the same token, I suspect that the real opposition to “Medicare for All” is not from health insurers but from healthcare providers.  Health insurers, a least the larger ones, have done quite nicely with Medicare Advantage, and would probably welcome moving members from those balkanized, largely self-funded employer plans to Medicare Advantage plans.  No, the bloo...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Tech Design healthcare design Kim Bellard Medicare For All Source Type: blogs