The private sector is always more efficient than government

The private sector is always more efficient than government... if government subsidizes the private sector for idealogical reasons in order to ensure the appearance that result.

It was presumed (by crackpots) that the private sector could control medicare costs through the magic of competition. This is dumb because medicine is not really a competitive market. When you cut your foot off you go to the nearest hospital, rather than shopping around. (Tuesday at the emergency room is double coupon day!) And patients seldom argue with doctors about which tests they need.

And people do not decide that they have enough saved up that they can have that pancreatic cancer they always wanted.

So we set up Medicare advantage whereby private insurers could offer what Medicare does.

Big shock. No private insurer could do it. To offer what medicare offers they would have to charge more than medicare costs.

In a normal world that would be the end of it.

But since the private sector cannot be allowed to be less efficient than the government we started funneling medicare funds into higher subsidies for medicare advantage so private plans could pretend to be competitive.

Eventually, in Obamacare we decided to have medicare stop subsidizing private insurers so they could pretend to compete with Medicare while pocketing a profit.

And that is more than half of what Mitt Romney promises to "restore" to medicare costs. Diverting Medicare monies to private insurers for no sane reason.

But doing that renders medicare insolvent in a few years, which will provide the "urgent need" to eliminate medicare.