"For-profit home health agencies are far costlier for Medicare than nonprofit agencies, according to a nationwide study published in the journal Health Affairs. Overall cost per patient was $1,215 higher at for-profits, with operating costs accounting for $752 of the difference and excess profits for $463. Yet the quality of care was actually worse at for-profit agencies, and more of their patients required repeat hospitalizations."
The study makes it clear that the "market" is more inefficient than Medicare and is frankly dangerous to the recipients of home health care from private agencies. Why this should surprise anyone is beyond me. The needs of a patient and the motives of for-profit home health agencies are obviously divergent, despite the failed attempts of states to regulate the conflict of interest out of existence.
In the words of the studies authors, "Letting for-profit companies into Medicare was a huge mistake that Congress needs to correct... Our findings show once again that the free-market, private-sector managed care model has failed."
Of course no one will fix this because we definitely want to keep the government out of our Medicare. They just screw everything up, you know.
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