Thread by @jdcmedlock

I was watching this video from @GazeWithin () and I have to be pedantic about something - the claim that Medicare admin costs look artificially low because it piggybacks on other government agencies to collect revenue and determine eligibility is incorrect

In their Trustees reports, they mention they fully reimburse other agencies like SSA, HHS, and the IRS for their respective administrative roles, listed in table III.B1 (and other tables for the other parts of Medicare)
cms.gov/Research-Stati…

The other claim - that admin costs look low because per capita spending for old people is much high since they tend to be sicker - has some truth to it, but it doesn't account for the big gap. Per capita spending is about 2x for old people, and admin spending is 12.8% vs 1.8%

So even if you double admin costs to account for that, we're still looking at admin costs about 1/3rd the size of private insurance. That's a substantial difference!

This is in line with the international evidence. Across the board, both public systems have lower admin costs than private systems (the US number here is inflated because it includes private Medicare Advantage, which has very high admin costs, see second chart)