U.S. and Chinese capitalism are heading to war over which power will dominate the exploitation of the world’s working people. But this antagonism does not prevent the capitalists of both countries cooperating to suck the blood of Chinese and U.S. workers.
Take the business of healthcare, for example. The American Chamber of Commerce in China brought a group of China’s health officials to the U.S. The purpose? To sell them on the profits to be made out of the Medicare Advantage ripoff.
Adding insult, Medicare Advantage costs the federal Medicare fund more per enrollee than it costs to have the enrollees in genuine Medicare itself. “Per-enrollee Medicare payments to Medicare Advantage insurers that pay for these benefits have increased rapidly. These payments have more than doubled, rising from $1,140 per enrollee in 2018 to over $2,300 per enrollee in 2024. In 2024, the Medicare program will spend 22% more per Medicare Advantage enrollee ($83 billion) than for similar beneficiaries in traditional Medicare.”1
The Chinese officials – experts and managers in the supposedly socialist government – were eager listeners. The Chamber reports:
AmCham China’s Healthcare Industry Group, led by Claire Ma, Vice President of AmCham China, traveled to the United States from August 12 to 22 for a week of healthcare cooperation and dialogue.
The trip was organized in collaboration with the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California and the Yale School of Public Health.
The study tour included officials from China’s provincial and municipal Healthcare Security Administrations, professors from Capital Medical University, Peking University, Central University of Finance and Economics, and Southern Medical University, as well as senior executives from leading American healthcare companies.
On August 16, Professors Phil Dalton and Eugene Lin from the Price School of Public Policy at USC delivered lectures to the delegation. Professor Eugene [Lin] focused on the implementation of the US Medicare Advantage program and its challenges.
The experts of the delegation group shared that China is currently promoting the development of health insurance and commercial insurance system, that commercial insurance is fully involved in the major disease insurance and long-term insurance care, and that “Human Insurance” and other universal supplemental insurance is rapidly emerging. The profit model, risk adjustment, and individual selection mechanism of the US Medicare Advantage program are important references for the development of China’s related social and commercial insurance business.2
The Chinese experts certainly know how to cover up their capitalist methods with dry language. When they refer to “universal supplemental insurance,” they let it slip that the public health care system in China does not cover people’s medical needs. If you can afford it, you buy supplemental insurance, just as Medicare enrollees in the U.S. pay for so-called Medigap policies from private insurance capitalists. As for the phrase “individual selection mechanism,” that simply means Medicare Advantage insurance corporations sell hard to attract people who are statistically likely to need little actual care, while shunning enrollment by Medicare members who might need expensive procedures.
The United States is a capitalist country that needs a socialist-communist revolution. China is a capitalist country that used to be socialist. It needs a new revolution, too.
Footnotes
[1] https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/gaps-in-medicare-advantage-data-remain-despite-cms-actions-to-increase-transparency/
[2] https://www.amchamchina.org/amcham-chinas-healthcare-industry-group-travels-to-us-for-public-health-leadership-workshop-series/
Charles Andrews is the author of The Hollow Colossus.
