Reply #20: I'm very suspicious of that chart, not blaming the poster, but look at source document [View All]

[Hamlette]

The document compares those insurance companies to medicare (and each other) several ways. This right wing blog picked one that matched its argument but look at this:

Metric 5—Contracted payment rate adherence
Description: On what percentage of records does the payer’s allowed amount equal the contracted payment rate? Source: MITSI

(Since this is a PDF and chart, I can't seem to cut and paste the results but

Medicare adhered to its contract 98.12% while private carriers adhered to their contract (what they said they would pay under their contract) between 61% and 86% of the time. What that means is you have a contract with UHC and they are only going to pay 61% of the stuff they say they will pay in their contract with you. They are going to break their contract with you 39% of the time.

Talk about cherry picking (the web site, not the DU poster).

Also, the chart is talking about "claim lines" what the hell is that? I'm not sure its really a claim if you read the source document. The document does not support the argument that Medicare is worse and may support the argument Medicare is much, much better than any other insurance company. But the right wing blog posts the one thing that might make Medicare look bad.

Assholes (not the DU who posted the link! The wing nut at the link who manipulated the study for propaganda purposes.)