Fixing Medicare

When ideas of healthcare reform began the question being asked was: Should we fix Medicare? With debates about the federal deficit swirling, the question has now become: How should we fix Medicare? The shift in positions and increase in urgency has come from the acknowledgement that Medicare is broken, and its costing the U.S. a ton of money.

It's easy to say we should fix Medicare; Actually figuring out how is a tad more difficult. As outlined in this New York Times article, President Obama's deficit reduction committee has considered a number of options. These options include (but are not limited to) :

1) Increasing the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 67
2) Requiring beneficiaries to pay higher premiums
3) Charging Co-payments for home health services
4) Paying doctors in "lump" amounts for entire treatments as opposed to paying for each step (tests, procedures) individually

The list goes on. For the complete range of options, check out the article. It's hard to say which option is best because all have pros and cons. For example, raising the eligibility age would save the government money for those two years, but those 65 and 66 year old patients might now be eligible for Medicaid. This just displaces the cost from Medicare to Medicaid.

Whichever solution is chosen, it will have to be supplemented with one thing: more efficient care. Changing the structure of Medicare will do nothing if health care is still administered in an inefficient way. This means, reducing medical errors, hospital infections, and administrative costs. More efficient care means cheaper care in the long run.

Fixing Medicare will probably require a pretty creative solution. What do you think is the best way to tackle this problem? Do you agree that any change needs to be supplemented with better health care? Will raising premiums do anything?

The End of Private Health Insurance

Posted By: Dan Hughes

Article By: (Unknown)

Above every other health-care goal, Democrats this year want to institute a "public option" -- an insurance program financed by taxpayers, managed by government and open to everyone, much like Medicare. This new middle-class entitlement is the most important debate in Congress this year, because it really is the last stand for anything resembling private health insurance.

This public option will supposedly "compete" with private alternatives. As President Obama likes to put it, those who are happy with the insurance they have now can keep it -- and if they happen to prefer the government offering, well, gee whiz, that's the free market at work. The reality is far different. Not only will the new program become the default coverage for the uninsured, but Democrats intend to game the system to precipitate -- or if need be, coerce -- an exodus to government from private insurance. Soon enough, that will be the only "option" left.

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