McSluggo..I was talking medicare, not medicaid in case that wasn't clear. Having said that I would expect that Medicare is much more expensive of a program than medicaid per capita, if nothing else than medicaid folks may/may not know what their options are and/or don't seek treatment that quickly because of the difficulty. Just the plight of the poor. I could be wrong but I'm expecting not.
You may be correct that integrating universal coverage would be more efficient but I kinda doubt it as a very large (if not the largest) portion of healthcare in the country is provided under medicare.
Per this article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)#Costs_and_funding_challen ges
Medicare costs have been doubling every 4 years or so. And right now it's huge. I would expect that size program could easily be used to pilot proposed spending cuts.
Quote:
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Total Medicare spending reached $440 billion for fiscal year 2007, or 16% of all federal spending. The only larger categories of federal spending are Social Security and defense.
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