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Nitpick: Title should read "America's Largest Private Health Insurer." America's largest health insurer is the government, via Medicare, Medicaid, and similar

by jawns 7y ago

Nitpick: Title should read "America's Largest Private Health Insurer." America's largest health insurer is the government, via Medicare, Medicaid, and similar programs. I'm interested in seeing how this corporate-funded/corporate-managed program compares to the many housing assistance programs that are funded by public funds or private donations. I'm sure there are plenty of businesses out there that already help fund such programs indirectly by donating to charities that run affordable-housing programs. But it will be interesting to see what happens when the businesses are running the programs directly, cutting out the nonprofits as a middleman. My somewhat pessimistic take is that any efficiencies that might be gained by applying more rigorous business methods will be offset by lack of domain knowledge and for-profit perspective -- seeing a homeless person as a problem to be solved rather than a person to be served. That said, I'm all for large corporations trying their best to address homelessness and housing insecurity, even if they do so imperfectly.

azernik 7y ago
To nitpick your nitpick - this "private" insurer is actually a government contractor, administering Medicaid for individual states. > The research and development lab for this experiment is a pair of apartment complexes in a down-at-the-heels corner of Phoenix called Maryvale. Here, Brenner is using UnitedHealth’s money to pay for housing and support services for roughly 60 formerly homeless recipients of Medicaid, the safety-net insurance program for low-income people. Most states outsource their Medicaid programs to private companies such as UnitedHealth, paying the insurer a per-head monthly fee—typically $500 to $1,000—to manage members’ care. The company’s 6 million Medicaid members produced $43 billion in 2018, almost 20% of total revenue. ... > To keep down costs and avoid the difficulty of running a health-care system, most states contract with UnitedHealth and its competitors to establish what are called Medicaid managed-care programs. In 2017, $264 billion, almost 50¢ of every Medicaid dollar, went toward care for the 54 million people on private Medicaid plans.

by jawns 7y ago

azernik 7y ago

To nitpick your nitpick - this "private" insurer is actually a government contractor, administering Medicaid for individual states. > The research and development lab for this experiment is a pair of apartment complexes in a down-at-the-heels corner of Phoenix called Maryvale. Here, Brenner is using UnitedHealth’s money to pay for housing and support services for roughly 60 formerly homeless recipients of Medicaid, the safety-net insurance program for low-income people. Most states outsource their Medicaid programs to private companies such as UnitedHealth, paying the insurer a per-head monthly fee—typically $500 to $1,000—to manage members’ care. The company’s 6 million Medicaid members produced $43 billion in 2018, almost 20% of total revenue. ... > To keep down costs and avoid the difficulty of running a health-care system, most states contract with UnitedHealth and its competitors to establish what are called Medicaid managed-care programs. In 2017, $264 billion, almost 50¢ of every Medicaid dollar, went toward care for the 54 million people on private Medicaid plans.