Top Obama Advisers Proposed Voucherizing Medicare Way Back in…2010?
Avik Roy: “It’s time for President Obama to own up. Either the Romney-Ryan plan is sound, or Obama’s campaign is being dishonest.” Continue reading
Will Obamacare Play Games With Your Actual Life?
Under new ObamaCare rules, hospitals will have a similar incentive to “game” the system to improve their Medicare statistics, even at patient expense. Continue reading
Romney and Obama: Both Wrong on Medicare
With both campaigns peddling the idea that any cuts to Medicare, now or in the future, are automatically a bad thing, we run the risk of poisoning the well for any future reform of the system. Continue reading
Ten Myths in the Medicare Ad Wars
Instead of a “serious national discussion about the future of Medicare. What we are getting instead is something akin to school yard taunts.” Get the facts from health policy expert John C. Goodman Continue reading
Ryan Medicare drama more hype than reality
The White House and Ryan Medicare budgets don’t differ that much. What does differ is their approach. The president’s approach is inflexible. Ryan’s approach has the advantage of making the cuts less painful by allowing market-based reforms instead of suppressing provider fees. Continue reading
PolitiFact’s “lie of the year” once again not a lie
PolitiFact’s past three Lies of the Year have been about health care. Not one of them was a lie. … Moreover, even if these three statements were false, the speakers believed them to be true. Therefore, they cannot be lies. Every single Lie of the Year award has gotten that basic fact wrong. Continue reading
Medicare price controls and rationing
On Stossel, Peter Suderman and Scott Gottlieb discuss how to fix Medicare. Gottlieb discusses Medicare’s price controls such that physicians get paid the same regardless of their quality, and that insurers mimic the system. He says government authorities will tighten control over doctors, control what care they can provide. Suderman discusses the point of his article, Medicare Whac-A-Mole Why health care price controls always fail. Continue reading
The Entitlement State Is Morally Bankrupt
“The problem with the entitlement state is not simply that it is bankrupting this country–the problem is that it is morally bankrupt.” Continue reading
Debunking claims touting Medicare’s low admin costs & ability to keep prices low
Can Medicare “use its monopsony (single-buyer) power to suppress provider fees”? Does it have lower administrative costs than commercial health plans? Is Paul Krugman right that its per-capita spending has increased more slowly than commercial health plans? No.
If Social Security were run like Medicare
Those who oppose changing Medicare into a voucher program for “private” insurance should support running Social Security like today’s Medicare: authorities would assign housing to seniors and “pick up government-approved groceries for little or no money.”
U.S. Credit Rating: Don’t Shoot the Downgrade Messenger
Attacking S&P for the U.S. credit downgrade is like criticizing your doctor for diagnosing your cancer.
Debt ceiling: Budget Deal Doesn’t Cut Spending
“Rs & Ds have come together on a ‘historic’ budget deal that … [the] Washington Post’s lead story calls the cuts ‘sharp’ and ‘severe.’ However, the budget deal doesn’t cut federal spending at all. The ‘cuts’ in the deal are only cuts from the CBO ‘baseline,’ which is a Washington construct of ever-rising spending.” – Chris Edwards, Cato
