Medicare Ad Wars, and Other Links
Block granting Medicaid to the states: it’s working in Canada.
Laura D’Andrea Tyson: If Republican leaders were serious about strengthening Medicare, they would find a way to lower costs, rather than passing on the risk of higher premiums to the elderly. Laura. Look here.
I don’t think Laura actually read her editorial. I think it was recycled from years ago.
Laura D’Andrea Tyson: If Republican leaders were serious about strengthening Medicare, they would find a way to lower costs, rather than passing on the risk of higher premiums to the elderly.
To control costs, someone has to be vigilant and watch the dollar. We can either have nobody to do that (traditional FFS Medicare before PPS); allow insurers to do that (Medicare Advantage); or allow seniors themselves to make these tough choices (pre-funding with high-deductible plans). Someone has to manage the care seniors receive (i.e. ration care). It’s more humane to let individuals makes the choices and trade-offs that fit their preferences than think that an army of bureaucrats can do a better job than patients acting like consumers.
I feel that, while necessary, Medicare reform is somewhat akin to treating the symptoms of the underlying problem rather than treating the disease itself. It is the unnecessarily high rise in health care costs that is contributing to the problem and needs to be brought under control. As health insurance companies, including ‘non-profits’ such as those within BlueCross/BlueShield that came under fire earlier this year, continue to post soaring annual profits I think the medical loss ratio needs to be closely monitored.
Dr. Goodman, a “crossfire” type of segment on your blog would be really interesting. I think it will help many people understand the vasts differences between yourself, and others like Ms. Tyson in an interesting way.
According to a previous post, we saw how canadians were struggling with delayed access to care, as well as rising costs, poor quality, and many other problems. If this is true…then why would any nation try to imitate the canadian system? It doesn’t make sense at all.
As far as I’m concerned, this is exactly what Republican leaders are going after…Big emphasis on the “rather than passing on the risk of higher premiums to the elderly” part.
Canada’s block grant system enjoys many benefits and gives the decentralized administrators opportunities to innovate and come up with the best way to deliver the funds to the people. Similar to Ryan’s proposal
Dr. Goodman points out in Priceless that single payer systems aggressively price control and thus do not reflect the true price of care. That said, good job Canada!
“Accountable-care organizations represent a major step away from the unsustainable fee-for-service model that rewards the number of procedures rather than the quality of care.”
I feel that having the government require doctors to perform certain procedures (evidenced based plans) will be more harmful than doctors maximizing against payment formula.
If we can avoid that ACOs might have a chance.
The fact that there is even a discussion brought up over whether either plan has been “written down” or not is quite absurd. What does it even matter that either political party has a “plan” whether in paper or not, if they don’t successfully execute it? These guys, like most people out there, are simply missing the bigger picture…