Harvard Study: Both Sides Are Spinning It
Private plans can deliver the full Medicare package of benefits at a significantly lower cost — nearly -10 percent lower, on average — than the government-administered fee-for-service program. That’s precisely the win-win proposition Paul Ryan has been touting: Beneficiaries could get their comprehensive Medicare benefits for no additional premium if they selected the less expensive private plans, and taxpayers would spend 10 percent less on the subsidies for the Medicare program.
So why are Democrats running ads using the study to attack the idea? Jim Capretta explains.
Truth is the first casualty of war. And we really are in a war.
Do most Americans understand the details of premium support? Probably not, and that is part of the reason why the President’s party will scare people into not supporting Medicare.
“The authors of the study simply ignore all that. They also fail to note that all the insurance plans in the system proposed by the Ryan budget would have to provide at least the same comprehensive coverage available now, and that the Medicare system we now have grows more expensive every year at a thoroughly unsustainable pace that threatens to destroy the program and bankrupt the government.”
The above paragraph from the article indicates a continuing problem that adds cost. Government mandates regarding what the product will be and all the rent seeking that goes along.
There are not many free market people out there, on either side, are there?
In most places, private contractors already administer Medicare FFS. In addition, nearly one-quarter of seniors are already in private MS plans. All options should be considered and experimented with. Some private plans will be wasteful; some will be good and efficient. We need to find out what works and why!
I suspect the reason there is little intellectual curiosity about private options among those who oppose MA plans is because, for them, it represents a step in the wrong direction — privately managed individual plans. I suspect that many opponents of MA really want is universal coverage, with a single-payer and global budgets.
I think it’s just a matter of time until there is serious bipartisan support for a plan using the market to reform Medicare.
@Larson
I think compromise could occur if Republicans were willing to expand Ryan-Wyden (or a similar model) by allowing for a public option for non-seniors. I could see Democrats getting on board for that type of arrangement. The argument for Ryan-Wyden is that competitive bidding will help lower prices, but yet conservatives were outraged by the possibility of having a public option in Obamacare.
Competitive bidding sounds like a good idea. However it will not control rising healthcare costs; it will only control the costs of bureaucracy.
You point to the finding that says:
“Beneficiaries could get their comprehensive Medicare benefits for no additional premium if they selected the less expensive private plans, and taxpayers would spend 10 percent less on the subsidies for the Medicare program.”
It’s better than that for those few who might insist on having Traditional Medicare. The Harvard professors found that, if the Wyden-Ryan plan had been in place in 2009, traditional Medicare would have cost $32 less per month in 2009 ($64) than it actually cost in 2009 ($96). That’s $400 more for the year in a senior’s pocket because of Romney/Ryan. How much more do you have to explain?