This is dead wrong. It's easier to deal with a small ha regional insurers than it is to deal with Medicare on the whole. And as I said in the original post, even within a region, Medicare is very heterogeneous.
> Medicare is by volume the largest provider.... Medicare isn't simple, it's just a small piece of a very big shit sandwich.
As you said yourself, it's the largest single piece of the sandwich. It also happens to be the core of it as well. Most of the complexity in the billing process stems from how Medicare structures and organizes its own billing, not the other way around.
I'm saying that the marginal complexity introduced by private plans is actually quite small compared to the complexity that Medicare already creates. Furthermore, the complexity that private insurers introduce is both directly and indirectly linked to the way Medicare structures its billing and reimbursement policies.
They are actually overlapping problems, since some of those private lines are Medicare Part C or D plans (and some are Medicaid managed care plans, and some are both Medicare Part C and Medicaid managed care plans.)
Medicare is by volume the larges provider but size is actually a benefit because it means that it's dealt with more frequently and is more familiar to care providers.
A care provider isn't multi-regional, thus when they deal with Medicare it's mostly consistent. The interface is at least similar. However they can have 100 patients with United Healthcare and each patient will have a unique and different line of insurance.
Medicare isn't simple, it's just a small piece of a very big shit sandwich.