Fix Health Care Policy

Medicaid Is Failing the People It Is Intended to Help

Heritage’s Kevin Dayaratna finds in a recent survey of academic literature that “Medicaid’s so-called safety net cripples the very people it is designed to help.”

The structural flaws in the program produce a cascade of failures, starting with underpaid and overburdened doctors, which produces longer waits for care, in turn leading to late-stage diagnosis of illnesses, finally resulting in more costly (though often less effective) treatments and higher mortality rates.

Recent statistics show that Medicaid enrollment has reached an all-time high of 70.4 million beneficiaries. In other words, one in five Americans now receives Medicaid benefits. Despite this, Obamacare’s intended expansion of Medicaid would add another 17 million beneficiaries to the already overburdened program.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: expensive treatments, failing, higher mortality rates, less effective, Medicaid, poor quality of care, private coverage, reform, safety net

Medicare and Seniors: Answering the $6,400 Question

Opponents to Medicare reform have been making plenty of erroneous claims about Medicare premium support lately, one of the worst being that Representative Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) premium-support model, co-authored by Senator Ron Wyden (D–OR), would cost future seniors an extra $6,400 a year. This claim is simply false.

Buried beneath the wild and scary allegations are the facts, which Heritage expert Rea Hederman details in his recent paper “Why Medicare Premium Support Would Not Cost Future Beneficiaries $6,400 More.”

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: $6400 extra, beneficiaries, erroneous claims, Medicare Advantage, myths, premium support, reform

Bringing Medicaid into the Debate

Medicare is an emotionally charged program because it provides health insurance coverage for the elderly. But Medicaid covers America’s poor and disabled—and no one wants to see them harmed, either.

However, like Medicare, Medicaid is also in desperate need of reform if it is to continue serving the people it was designed to serve. Nearly one-third of America’s doctors are already opting out of treating Medicaid patients—because their costs often outweigh what the program pays for care.

States—which already have budget crises of their own—share the cost of Medicaid with the federal government. They can’t afford to simply add more people to Medicaid, which is one of Obamacare’s main ways to insure more people. (The Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision gave states some breathing room when it ruled that Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion must be optional for states.)

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: doctor access, expansion, Medicaid, Medicare, ObamaCare, reform

Obama Administration Agrees: Florida Medicaid Reform Pilot Good for Patients and Taxpayers

Florida’s Medicaid Reform Pilot is pro-patient and pro-taxpayer, and the Obama Administration agrees.

In original research published by The Heritage Foundation and also submitted to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) during the agency’s deliberations, I showed that the program’s patients are healthier and happier with their care and that Florida taxpayers saved more than $100 million each year of the program.

The Florida reforms work by giving patients a choice of the private health plan that works best for them. Enrollees can choose from plans with varied benefits and provider networks, and a monetary rewards system creates incentives for healthy, responsible behavior. By shifting away from failed policies of central planning toward a consumer-driven program, the program has been successful on a number of levels.

The waiver extension of Florida’s patient-centered Medicaid reform preserves the expanded choices, incentives for healthy behavior, and increased health services that pilot patients have enjoyed for years. Pilot patients have better health outcomes and report higher satisfaction rates with their plans, their care, and their access to specialists than their counterparts who are confined to traditional Medicaid and commercial HMOs.

The bottom line with Florida’s Medicaid Reform is that when the patient is the priority, government and HMO bureaucrats are finally held accountable. Costs flatten and patient health and satisfaction improves.

(Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Florida, Medicaid, ObamaCare, private health plan, reform, repeal the law

Medicare Needs a Budget and Structural Reform

Medicare faces a dismal future that could threaten its very existence. In two recent papers, Stuart Butler, Ph.D., and Robert Moffit, Ph.D. of the new Heritage Center for Policy Innovation analyze the problem and offer detailed solutions on how to reverse course.

Butler explains that many objections to Medicare reform are fueled by myths. For instance, many Americans believe that seniors have paid for their own Medicare through payroll taxes. But in reality, only Medicare Part A is financed through payroll taxes. Parts B and D are voluntary and financed through a combination of beneficiary premiums (covering just 25 percent of costs) and subsidies from taxpayers.

Next, Butler points out, there is no true Medicare trust fund. The program operates as a pay-as-you-go system, meaning revenue immediately goes out the door to pay for current benefits. Another myth is that the payroll tax is a premium and quite different from the income tax. Butler explains, “Since the Medicare payroll tax, unlike the Social Security tax, does not have an income cap, it is actually indistinguishable from a regular income tax bracket.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: income tax, Medicare, pay-as-you-go, reform, trust fund