[Retric]

That was from 2005 and there has been a world of changes in how things are paid for recently.

"Most notably, the share of total spending on hospital inpatient services declined by one-third between 2006 and 2016, from 32 percent to 21 percent, while payments to Medicare Advantage (private health plans which cover all Part A and Part B benefits) doubled, from 15 percent to 30 percent, as private plan enrollment has grown steadily since 2006." https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/the-facts-on-medica...

Anyway, I still disagree with how many of these things are calculated. You need to look at the indirect cost part of COGs critically and in context of other related government spending.

Again, the problem with GAAP it assumes all spending is prudent which is far from the truth.

[chimeracoder]

That KFF quotation is saying literally the exact opposite of the point you're trying to make. Though I guess if you don't understand how Medicare Advantage works, it's easy to make that mistake.

> Anyway, I still disagree with how many of these things are calculated. You need to look at the indirect cost part of COGs critically and in context of other related government spending.

Medicare doesn't cover COGS. Private payers do. You can't get away from that fact, especially when you've now provided two separate links that corroborate it.

[Retric]

I am not trying to get away from COGs by saying Medicare covers it because I agree it does not. I am saying the overhead included is misleading because it includes a portion of unpaid bills from other patients. Yes, it's part of a hospital's overhead, no it's not medicares responsibility.