This event will examine whether or not Medicare can meet its obligations to seniors despite rapidly rising health costs and shrinking revenues.

Medicare should not be off-limits in the debate about the debt ceiling. Government promises regarding Medicare cannot be kept and it is time for Congress to find a solution.

Our research shows that competitive bidding—a key feature of the Wyden-Ryan plan—could save Medicare $339 billion over ten years while maintaining basic benefits and without raising taxes. Crucially, the elderly would not be exposed to the risk of higher health care costs, as in approaches that would set fixed voucher payments toward the purchase of medical insurance.

Unless Congress acts soon, Medicare fees paid to physicians will be cut automatically 10 percent next year, with additional cuts of about 5 percent every year beginning in 2009. Organized medicine has made it clear that cuts of such magnitude would adversely affect senior access to health care as physicians...

Rep. Paul Ryan claims that huge savings under Medicare's Part D prescription drug program proves that competition will work for the full program. His critics argue that the savings have nothing to do with competition. As happens so often in Washington, both sides are focusing on the wrong issue.

According to information in the Medicare Trustees' latest annual report, Medicare's long-term fiscal gap now exceeds $60 trillion, or nearly six times the amount that the entire U.S....

Demographic, economic, and political forces have placed unprecedented demands on Medicare that cannot be met without major program reform. Policies are needed to change the fundamental incentives that drive provider and patient behavior in Medicare--and ultimately the entire health sector.