Joseph Antos' analysis of Medicare's fiscal crisis and reform options that could make the program sustatainable; a response to a request from 16 health professionals elected to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives for public comment on Medicare reform. 

How to Fix Medicare: Let's Pay Patients, Not PhysiciansBy Roger FeldmanAEI Press, 2008, $15.00

Implemented wisely, Feldman argues, medical indemnities would expand consumer choice, improve program efficiency, and simplify the Medicare program.

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.  

There is a way to fix the Medicare program without raising taxes: use market-like arrangements to set prices for both the traditional fee-for-service (FFS) program and for private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. A fully implemented competitive pricing system for Medicare would save $550 billion over 10 years.

Until government price controls are lifted, the makers of generics will be unable to cover their production costs.

The world is becoming increasingly scary at the very time that the military will be facing 20% reductions. With each passing day, the world closes in; with each passing day, our ability to manage that world degrades.

All levels of government face growing pressures to restrain spending. One downside to the rapid growth in tax-financed health spending that I have documented in several prior posts is the vulnerability of the health system to measures taken to curb government spending. But the degree of such vulnerability varies dramatically across different components of the health sector.