WASHINGTON—Unless Washington policy makers strengthen and modernize Medicare, the federal health insurance program for seniors will face an automatic benefit payment cut of 11 percent in as little as eight years.
The Medicare trustees just issued their latest warning about the need for Congress and the White House to address Medicare’s growing challenges in the coming years.
Addressing the urgent need to preserve Medicare for America’s current and future retirees, the Heritage Foundation’s senior research fellow Robert Moffit and a cadre of prominent health policy experts have released a new book, “Modernizing Medicare: Harnessing the Power of Consumer Choice and Market Competition.”
Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Moffit and independent policy consultant Marie Fishpaw bring together leading scholars across the conservative movement to outline a vision for Medicare reform that strengthens and modernizes the program.
“Unless changes are made, seniors on Medicare not only face automatic cuts in their hospital benefits in eight years, but seniors and taxpayers alike will face large and growing financial burdens,” Moffit said.
“Far too many in Washington want to kick Medicare’s problems down the road. But the longer they wait, the harder the solutions become. Our book details how they can do this without compromising health services for seniors.”
Modernizing Medicare provides solutions based on choice, price transparency, health plan performance and market competition to upgrade Medicare so that patients have more affordable options that are accountable and deliver high-quality care.
“This is a must read for any lawmaker who is serious about improving Medicare,” said Roger Severino, vice president of Heritage’s domestic policy. “Bob and Marie have done a great job in bringing together some of the best thinkers of how we could make Medicare work more efficiently, fix some of its perverse incentives that don’t help taxpayers or seniors and provide beneficiaries with even more benefits and coverage options than what they have now.”
Contributors include former Medicare trustee Charles Blahous, former Medicare administrator Gail Wilensky, former Congressional Budget Office director Doug Holtz-Eakin as well as Walton Francis, Joseph Antos, Doug Badger, Brian Miller, John Goodman, Edmund Haislmaier, Mark Pauly and Christopher Pope.
Learn more about the book and order it here.
