I’ve been trying to find how many people now and in the future that are 65 or over are covered by private or government health insurance that may not have to be covered by Medicare. I’ve looked on the Kaiser Family Foundation, Center for Medicare Studies, the Census Bureau, etc. and I’m not finding that specific kind of breakdown. I know that this is shrinking as a percent of the people covered, but I just can’t seem to find out specific numbers and projections.
I’m doing this for my business (not a school assignment!) and I can normally find market research data on my own, but this one eludes me. So, I turn to the teeming millions. Where do I find this stuff?
Typically, employers who provide retiree health coverage purchase plans that are secondary or supplementary to Medicare. This means the retiree still enrolls in Medicare. The retiree has somewhat better coverage than if they just had Medicare (lower copays, prescription coverage before that was in Medicare, more preventive care coverage), but it doesn’t save the government any money. I am not aware of any retiree healthcare plans that pay bills Medicare would otherwise have paid. That would be throwing away money on the employer’s part. Maybe there is one somewhere, but I’d be surprised if this were a significant sort of coverage at all.
Finding current statistics on this will be hard I imagine as it seems to take the government a couple years to release stuff like this.
In 2003, it says 35 million people over age had Medicare. I’m sure 2 seconds of Googling can get you the total population of people over 65 in 2003. There is a number to start with.
That won’t take into effect people that are not eligible for Medicare, of course, but I’d bet a bit more Googling will come up with that number as well.
But you can keep in mind that Medicare is always the LAST primary when it comes to insurance claims. Private insurance always pays before Medicare.
There is no government insurance that I am aware of that pays before Medicare. Medicaid is always secondary to Medicare (except for services Medicare does not cover, i.e. most prophylactics), Tricare becomes secondary once eligible for Medicare, etc.
So, technically, you can look at it this way. Every Medicare claim is one that Medicare HAS to pay, because if the beneficiary has some other form of payer that is responsible then Medicare by law requires that payer to reimburse the provider.