Panelists discuss competitive pricing in Medicare.

Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush have proposed widely different plans to reduce the number of the uninsured and contain rising health care costs. Is the Kerry health plan a massive government takeover of the health system? Is Bush simply ignoring the problem of the uninsured? Will either...

The new Medicare trustees reports for hospital insurance (Part A) and supplementary medical insurance (Part B) are scheduled to be released on March 19. (The reports should be available at http://www.hcfa.gov/pubforms/tr/ at that time.) Large changes in the projected financial condition of Medicare have led some...

The Trade Act of 2002 created a new tax credit to enable some U.S. workers-who receive guaranteed pensions or lost their jobs due to foreign competition-to purchase private health insurance coverage. Several federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Health and...

Tax credits to expand health insurance coverage are being considered by the Bush administration and several members of Congress. While there appears to be substantial interest in and bipartisan support for tax credits, their use as a means of subsidizing the purchase of health insurance presents both challenging policy tradeoffs...

Traditional budget measures-such as the national debt and deficits-are becoming inadequate as federal budget priorities shift increasingly toward social insurance programs. As the baby-boom generation retires and life spans continue to lengthen, the share of retirees in the U.S. population will expand considerably and Social Security and Medicare...

Congress now seems to be showing substantial interest in adding coverage of outpatient prescription drugs to the Medicare program. Several proposals to do so have already been developed, and others are under discussion.

This AEI session, the second in a series, will consider four of the proposals, which represent...