Medicare
Commentary
Path Dependency in Medicare Reform
Arguments will not change this fact: People change when the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of changing, but not before. This can be the only explanation for the majority of respondents to polls (described here) which ask the foolish question whether “Medicare should remain as it ...
Commentary
Grim Reality of Medicare Reform
Sure, I’ll admit I had the urge to jump up and down and pump my fists in the air. But then I read Henry Olsen’s warning about alienating blue-collar voters, and I decided that while McCarthy’s scorched-earth approach may be the right one for the conservative patriot to adopt when ...
Business & Economics
Medicare Auctions for Durable Medical Equipment: Price Suppression and Research and Development Investment
San Francisco (June 13, 2011)—A new research study released by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based free-market think tank, reviews the auction design process currently established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for medical devices and equipment. That process creates important adverse economic effects: It yields ...
Commentary
Mission Impossible: Medicare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board
Key Points The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a new bureaucracy established by Obamacare that will limit Medicare beneficiaries access to certain medical goods and servicesespecially new prescription drugs. IPAB puts Medicare beneficiaries access to prescription drugs and certain other medical goods and services under control of ...
Health Care
The Ryan Republican Medicare Reforms: What They Are, What They’re Not, and What They Might Become
Key Points The Medicare part of the Ryan budget is superior to Obamacare but needs more definition. The current proposal would limit future Medicare beneficiaries choices to those selected from a federal exchange. Medicare beneficiaries would benefit more from Republicans clear commitment to restore Medicare Advantage, a popular alternative to ...
Commentary
Clarifying Ryan’s Medicare Reform
(Not that Ryan’s retreating from the term will prevent “voucher” being used to describe his reform. Grace-Marie Turner has explained how “premium support” differs from a voucher, but even Ryan supporter Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute insists on describing it as a voucher.) Of course, a good night’s sleep ...
Commentary
Ryan Flinched on Medicare
Path to Prosperity, however, eliminates the “payment” in favor of the woolier “premium support.” Nor does it even report how it would calculate this premium support, beyond asserting that “wealthier beneficiaries would receive a lower subsidy” (p. 46). It never ceases to amaze me that conservative policy analysts cheer such ...
Commentary
If Obamacare is Unconstitutional, Why Aren’t Medicare & Medicaid?
Legally, the difference is that the latter two programs are government operations, whereas the individual mandate would have compelled people to buy a private product. Helvering v. Davis (1937) was the famous (or infamous) case wherein the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Social Security Act was constitutional. For a ...
Commentary
More on the Insanity of the Medicare Payment System
The first example is a Bulgarian woman living in Greece, who is about to deliver a baby from an anonymous European egg donor, whose father is Italian. The mother who raises the baby will be the Italian man’s infertile Italian wife. The man who brought it all together is a ...
Commentary
Reflections on the Insanity of the Medicare Payment System
Suppose that in 1965, the federal government observed that great advances were taking place in aircraft design and manufacturing. In order to ensure that Americans were able to take advantage of this, the government legislated “Aircare.” Flash forward to 2010: “Aircare” pays for our ariplane tickets. It pays the airlines ...
Path Dependency in Medicare Reform
Arguments will not change this fact: People change when the pain of not changing becomes greater than the pain of changing, but not before. This can be the only explanation for the majority of respondents to polls (described here) which ask the foolish question whether “Medicare should remain as it ...
Grim Reality of Medicare Reform
Sure, I’ll admit I had the urge to jump up and down and pump my fists in the air. But then I read Henry Olsen’s warning about alienating blue-collar voters, and I decided that while McCarthy’s scorched-earth approach may be the right one for the conservative patriot to adopt when ...
Medicare Auctions for Durable Medical Equipment: Price Suppression and Research and Development Investment
San Francisco (June 13, 2011)—A new research study released by the Pacific Research Institute (PRI), a California-based free-market think tank, reviews the auction design process currently established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for medical devices and equipment. That process creates important adverse economic effects: It yields ...
Mission Impossible: Medicare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board
Key Points The Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) is a new bureaucracy established by Obamacare that will limit Medicare beneficiaries access to certain medical goods and servicesespecially new prescription drugs. IPAB puts Medicare beneficiaries access to prescription drugs and certain other medical goods and services under control of ...
The Ryan Republican Medicare Reforms: What They Are, What They’re Not, and What They Might Become
Key Points The Medicare part of the Ryan budget is superior to Obamacare but needs more definition. The current proposal would limit future Medicare beneficiaries choices to those selected from a federal exchange. Medicare beneficiaries would benefit more from Republicans clear commitment to restore Medicare Advantage, a popular alternative to ...
Clarifying Ryan’s Medicare Reform
(Not that Ryan’s retreating from the term will prevent “voucher” being used to describe his reform. Grace-Marie Turner has explained how “premium support” differs from a voucher, but even Ryan supporter Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute insists on describing it as a voucher.) Of course, a good night’s sleep ...
Ryan Flinched on Medicare
Path to Prosperity, however, eliminates the “payment” in favor of the woolier “premium support.” Nor does it even report how it would calculate this premium support, beyond asserting that “wealthier beneficiaries would receive a lower subsidy” (p. 46). It never ceases to amaze me that conservative policy analysts cheer such ...
If Obamacare is Unconstitutional, Why Aren’t Medicare & Medicaid?
Legally, the difference is that the latter two programs are government operations, whereas the individual mandate would have compelled people to buy a private product. Helvering v. Davis (1937) was the famous (or infamous) case wherein the U.S. Supreme Court found that the Social Security Act was constitutional. For a ...
More on the Insanity of the Medicare Payment System
The first example is a Bulgarian woman living in Greece, who is about to deliver a baby from an anonymous European egg donor, whose father is Italian. The mother who raises the baby will be the Italian man’s infertile Italian wife. The man who brought it all together is a ...
Reflections on the Insanity of the Medicare Payment System
Suppose that in 1965, the federal government observed that great advances were taking place in aircraft design and manufacturing. In order to ensure that Americans were able to take advantage of this, the government legislated “Aircare.” Flash forward to 2010: “Aircare” pays for our ariplane tickets. It pays the airlines ...
