Senator Whitehouse, Ranking Member Enzi, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to participate in this very important hearing on health care delivery system reform.

In a just released piece in the New England Journal of Medicine piece, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) healthcare economist and former Congressional Budget Office official Joseph Antos assesses the Wyden-Ryan Medicare reform proposal.

By next year, about two-thirds of American physicians will be working as salaried employees of large groups and hospitals. This movement has been underway for years. Over the last decade, the number of independent physicians was falling by about 2% a year. But these trends are now accelerating. 

Medicare is facing a fiscal calamity: how can the growth of Medicare spending be limited while ensuring that beneficiaries continue to have access to affordable health care?

Joesph Antos' statement on premium support for Medicare before the House Committee on Ways and Means' Subcommittee on Health

For the second year in a row, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has advanced a comprehensive budget plan that would restructure Medicare and Medicaid, repeal the big-spending portions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and ultimately resolve the fiscal crisis facing this country. 

Congress will once again put off a huge cut in Medicare payments to physicians, but that will not solve the underlying problems of fee-for-service payment.  

Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden have defined the policy parameters that could be the basis for real Medicare reform in 2013.