Question

What are the advantages of having private insurers manage Medicare? Disadvantages?

Answer 1

The benefitsof having private insurers manage Medicare can be :

1. One potential benefit from prIvate health care insurance can be shorter waiting time for the treatment. This may be helpful mainly in the cases like elective surgery which often involves long waiting periods in the public hospitals mostly in the case when emergency cases arrive.

2. The treatment in private rooms is another benefit from private health care as mostly in the government hospitals, there is no availability of private rooms as there are rooms common for 6 to 8 patients being treated at a time which may be unwilling to many people. So they can go for private hospitals to get privacy in treatment mainly in the form of private rooms.

3. In many private health insurance policies, you are given a right to choose the doctor from whom you want the treatment which is not possible in public health care as there the doctor who is available will give you the treatment without concerning your choice.

4. There is an opportunity of claiming back some rebate or other facilities in private healthcare like dental or optical facilities, physiotherapy etc.

Some drawbacks of private insurers managing Medicare :

1. The major drawback of private healthcare services is the cost. The cost is so high that it is not affordable for the lower middle level or lower level income group of the society. Thus the benefits of private healthcare reach out to only a handful of rich people or high income groups of the society rather than the ones who are actually in need of that.

2. Other drawbacks can be the out of pocket expenditure, non inclusion of some treatments in the policy, complex procedure, etc.