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Making Medicare More Secure, Not Less
It astonishes me that current and future Medicare beneficiaries are raising concerns about future legislation: in the absence of reform, these programs will fail!
The Medicare Part A program (the hospital insurance program) runs out of money in just a few years. There is no statutory authority to fund this program without new legislation: it is entirely unclear how the program functions once the trust fund is exhausted.
The Medicare Part B program (outpatient and physician services, primarily) is not going to run out of money (it is funded via beneficiary premiums and federal tax revenues). But, written into statute are draconian cuts to physician reimbursements. If allowed to occur, many physicians will opt out of the program, leading to dramatically reduced access. Thus, the program will begin failing our Medicare beneficiaries unless there is legislative change.
Only the Medicare Part D program (the prescription drug benefit) faces no immediate challenge.
Medicare is at great risk in the absence of reform. It is beyond the scope of this posting to offer real solutions, but clearly we need to communicate with the public about how the reform effort will make Medicare more secure, not less.
By
Howard Forman
|
August 13, 2009; 11:12 AM ET
| Category:
Doctors
,
Health Care Reform
,
Health costs
,
Insurance
,
Medicare
,
Pharmaceutical Companies
,
Prescriptions
,
Taxes
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Posted by: HumanSimpleton | August 14, 2009 2:07 AM
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I know I said I would sit this one out, but statements like this by an MD have to be refuted. The question is not whether Medicare is now fully funded, but whether we can afford to keep Medicare as it is. As a matter of fact we can. I reproduce below a calculation by Uwe Reinhardt that shows that under very conservative assumptions, we will have 70% more money (in real dollars) after paying for Medicare in 2050 than we have now after paying for Medicare. The problem lies in the enormous waste of private insurance. There is so much waste there in high overhead and compliance costs, that we could give an improved Medicare to everyone and it would not cost us anymore than we are now paying, probably less.
Here is Uwe's calculation:
"If "economic sustainability," then exactly what do people have in mind with that phrase? During the past 4 decades or so, the long-run, smoothed average annual growth rate in real (inflation-adjusted) GDP per capita has been about 2%. Suppose that fell to only 1.5% for the next four decades. The current average real GDP per capita of about $40,000 would then grow to about $72,500 by 2050 in constant-dollar terms. Medicare now absorbs about 3% of GDP, leaving a non-Medicare real per capita GDP of $38,800. It was estimated by the CBO about a year ago that Medicare will absorb about 9% of GDP by 2050. Let’s make that 10%. At these numbers, the non-Medicare real GDP per capita available to today’s little critters who will run America in 2050 will still be close to 70% larger than is our current non-Medicare GDP per capita."
Posted by: lensch | August 13, 2009 4:40 PM
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Medicare is socialized medicine. Those opposed to socialized medicine should oppose this socialism.
If they do not, and are against health care reform, they are hypocrites