Is Medicare Public Or Private? 
That is a great question ! I guess the best way to answer it is you say pota-toe , they say pota-tah . Technically , Medicare is public , because it is administered by the Federal Government . But ... they use private insurers to run it . The best way to describe it is that it 's like the way your employer runs their insurance program - it 's public , because it 's offered to all employees and they pay for some of it , but the plans are offered through a private insurance company . The confusion for the public vs. private debate was an attempt by debating politicians to generate confusion , and make things difficult . Since that seems to be what we pay them to do , they were just really doing a good job ! I hope that this helps a little at simplifying the answer for you . If you would like to try to clear this up a little more , please feel free to contact me , I love a challenge ! -LRB- And who better to challenge us than a bunch of politicians ? -RRB- Thanks for asking ! 