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Over the course of the past several decades, federal and state lawmakers have proposed a variety of initiatives to reform America’s health care system and reduce costs. One idea has been to instill competition in the health care markets to enable the industry to operate more like a traditional market.
The latest congressional leadership proposal for a "demonstrationproject" to test Medicare reform continues a tiresome pattern ofbad federal health policy that undercuts the effectiveness ofmarket-based health care reforms. Serious Medicare reform means onething: creating a premium support financing system modeled on theFederal Employees Health Benefits Program.
Medicare reforms are needed to secure value for patients, enhance the program’s solvency, and reduce its burden on current and future taxpayers.
The House-Senate conference committee outline agreement this weekguts any serious long-term reform of the troubled Medicare programwhile proposing the single largest entitlement expansion in theprogram's history. Instead of enacting real reform at a datecertain and in time to accommodate the retirement of the massivebaby-boom generation, key congressional leaders are insteadproposing a limited "demonstration project" to test seriousMedicare reform, confined to a few areas of the country.
The Heritage reform plan, advanced in Saving the American Dream, and five other reform plans differ in detail, but their main features are similar. Congress should build on this powerful consensus and craft a comprehensive reform of the Medicare program.