Prescription For Disaster

Bills Introduced to Allow People to Opt-Out of Medicare

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Earlier this week, AHEC wrote about a federal appeals court decision that denied people the right/ability to opt-out of Medicare. Instead, the court's decision traps people into a health care system they may not want. New legislation has been introduced on Capitol Hill to give Americans the option to forego Medicare if they chose.

Read more about this bill at FreedomWorks website, here. This is not just common sense, it is good government.

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC

Burr-Coburn: The Best Medicare Reform Plan to Date

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Avik Roy of Forbes Apothecary has commented on the Burr-Coburn Medicare reform plan calling it the best reform plan introduced to date. According to his column, their plan achieves each of six important principles for reform: "(1) preserving benefits for people aged 55 and older; (2) making sure that retirees share more of the costs of their care, and thereby a stake in prudent consumption; (3) means-testing; (4) indexing the Medicare retirement age to life expectancy; (5) aggressive fraud prevention; (6) allowing seniors to shop for value in insurance plans."

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC

Court Rules Citizens Cannot Opt-Out of Medicare

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

A federal court ruled recently that citizens who are eligible for Medicare cannot voluntarily give them up. Read a brief summary of the case here.

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC

Idaho Misleads Citizens in Effort to Push ObamaCare Exchange

Monday, January 16, 2012

According to John Goodman's blog post from January 6, 2012, Idaho Governor Butch Otter is claiming Idaho will loose 20% of the federal government's share of Medicaid funding for his state unless the state creates a state insurance exchange (or $300 million. Goodman and AHEC agree states should NOT create the exchanges.

As to Otter's claims of losing funds, Graham writes: "Look folks, the whole notion is bunk. There is no connection whatsoever between a state's federal matching funds and whether it establishes a Health Benefits Exchange. No state should establish a Health Benefits Exchange - period, full stop."

Otter has since backed of his claims but this begs the question, "Why lie about it?"

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC

The Left is Wrong: Medicare is Not "More Efficient" Than the Private Sector

Saturday, January 07, 2012

Greg Scandlin has a wonderful new article that covers two critical aspects of federal health care costs. The first explains why Medicare Part B has had its growth rate cut in half in 2010. The second explains how the Left uses an apples to oranges comparison when claiming that Medicare costs are growing more slowly than private insurance costs.

The article thoroughly rebuts a Washington Post article that included a meme of the left used to justify government price controls of healthcare generally and ObamaCare specifically. Namely, that federal health programs are more efficient than the private sector (therefore justifying ObamaCare) and that they are so efficient that programs like Medicare and Medicaid need no reform.

As to Part B, Scandlin discusses the fact that the growth rate for Medicare Part B (which covers hospitalization) had been reduced in half (from 4% to 2%) in 2010. The reason for this is the implementation of Medicare's prescription drug program (Part D, which was enacted in 2003). Private-sector pharmaceutical innovation has produced drugs that have proven to help prevent and treat disease as an alternative to costly medical care. But lest anyone think Part D pays for itself, Scandlin cautions, "These savings on core services may not equal the costs of covering the drugs, but they help offset those new costs and result in better health for the covered population. So it is considered a net gain even if the total cost may be higher." While the Medicare bean-counters may look at Part B and Part D as separate programs, an honest assessment of spending for these programs requires looking at all of Medicare (in total) to asses the program's true costs (otherwise one would see "savings" in Part B (as the WaPo did) while ignoring the costs to produce those savings which are found in Part D and elsewhere).

As to the false statement that Medicare costs less than private sector insurance, he writes: "Medicare places the entire cost of covering drugs in a separate program while keeping the savings in the core program. Employer coverage retains those costs in their core program. So employer costs go up while Medicare costs stay the same." The same is true for Medicare's administrative costs compared to private sector insurance costs where federal budgeting divides funding for the Medicare bureaucracy into one pot of money (discretionary) and the programatic funding into another (mandatory). When discussing Medicare's costs, the left routinely ignores the cost of bureaucracy for Medicare but not for private insurance. This is where the left uses an apples to oranges comparison. So if personnel costs rise for both Medicare and private insurance, that increase is only attributed to private insurance while ignored in Medicare.

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC

CMS Uses Flawed Process in Bidding Process for Medicare Services

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Sally Pipes writes for Forbes about the deeply flawed system used by CMS to gain bids for Medicare service providers (including for medical equipment, supplies and devices). The failed process is one that could only be conceived by government. For example, Pipes explains how bidders are allowed to bid to gain a contract but are not held to their bid. This has the perverse effect of driving legitimate (and honest) suppliers out of the marketplace and the low-ball bidders, once the win, can jack their prices up later.

Read Pipes full article here.

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC.

Democrat Senator Ron Wyden Joins Paul Ryan in Plan to Save Medicare

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Politico is reporting that Democratic Senator Ron Wyden (OR) is joining Republican Rep. Paul Ryan (WI) in support of a premium support plan for Medicare - the move is a very positive step towards real market-based health care reforms that could save Medicare and reduce the deficit. In addition, the plan has the potential to break the partisan gridlock in Washington by moving America towards a better functioning free-market system that can actually rein in costs.

Senator Wyden should be commended for his courage on this issue - he is the first Democrat in Washington to speak truthfully about the state of America's entitlement system and the desperate need for spending reform.

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC.

Empowered Consumers, the Best Way to Lower Medicare's Costs

Thursday, November 17, 2011

The Heritage Foundation has a new Backgrounder on how to reform Medicare - through consumer-driven control rather than a top-down approach. The summary states the following:

"Rapidly rising Medicare spending is a major cause of the federal government’s budget problems. Proposals to reform Medicare and slow its spending fall into one of two categories: more government micromanagement or empowerment of health care consumers in a functioning marketplace. Those who promote top-down spending controls optimistically assume that federal regulators can accomplish now something that has eluded Medicare’s administrators for more than 40 years. In contrast, the market-based approach to reform would harness the power of financial incentives to encourage health care consumers to choose the best, most efficient means of getting services and would reward providers for finding ways to deliver more for less."

Read the full report here.

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC.

The Health Care Compact is A Trojan Horse That Will Decimate State Budgets

Saturday, October 29, 2011

AHEC has recently completed an extensive fiscal and policy review of the Health Care Compact (HCC or compact), legislation that has been introduced in several states. The conclusion of our fiscal review of the HCC is that the compact's funding formula is fatally flawed and that it will shift $3 trillion of healthcare liabilities from the federal government onto the backs of the states. Our report even provides a break down of the fiscal shortfall that will be created in each state if the compact were to be widely adopted.

Ironically, the group pushing the HCC has confirmed AHEC's $3 trillion figure but has failed to inform state legislators of how this will impact their state's budget. It would be the height of fiscal irresponsibility for a state to pass the compact given the obvious flaws in the funding formula, particularly if a state does not have a plan in place to ensure that the state's most vulnerable citizens will not receive proper health care. Yet some states (Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia and Missouri) have done just that.

READ AHEC'S FULL REPORT ON THE HCC HERE.

AHEC has previously discussed the myriad of problems with the Health Care Compact. You can read much of AHEC's previous work on the HCC in the following places:

AHEC's Blog: The Connection of the HCC to Efforts to Enact Socialized Medicine
AHEC's Blog: The HCC will lead to Taxpayer Funding of Abortions and Free HealthCare for Illegal Aliens
A Line of Sight: A Conservative Assessment of the HCC

If you are concerned about the implications of the Health Care Compact, please call your state legislators (especially in Tennessee, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan and tell them to oppose the Health Care Compact).

Be sure to follow AHEC on Twitter @TheAHEC and at Facebook.com/TheAHEC.

Heritage:

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The Heritage Foundation has a great webmemo on what can be done to fix Medicaid. The memo recommends: "Moving to a premium-support model would reverse the program’s deterioration by using the dynamics of the free market to contain costs and improve consumer satisfaction."

Bills Introduced to Allow People to Opt-Out of Medicare

Burr-Coburn: The Best Medicare Reform Plan to Date

Court Rules Citizens Cannot Opt-Out of Medicare

Idaho Misleads Citizens in Effort to Push ObamaCare Exchange

The Left is Wrong: Medicare is Not "More Efficient" Than the Private Sector

CMS Uses Flawed Process in Bidding Process for Medicare Services

Democrat Senator Ron Wyden Joins Paul Ryan in Plan to Save Medicare

Empowered Consumers, the Best Way to Lower Medicare's Costs

The Health Care Compact is A Trojan Horse That Will Decimate State Budgets

Heritage:

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