The President’s Medicare Plan: A Trojan Horse to Ration Health Care?

Kathryn Nix / April 18, 2011

Medicare, the federal health care program for America’s seniors, represents $30.8 trillion in long-term unfunded obligations. If Medicare’s runaway costs are not reined in, the program could cease to exist for future generations.

The issue is not whether Medicare costs should be controlled but how. Congress can pursue one of two routes: (1) It can change the structure and culture of Medicare to empower patients to make health care decisions in order to achieve the best value, forcing plans and providers to compete for their dollars, or (2) it can further empower bureaucracy to impose top-down controls on the costs of services. This can indeed reduce spending, but it guarantees a simultaneous reduction in the quality of health care Americans enjoy today. (more…)