Bring Market Prices to Medicare! Essential Reform at a Time of Fiscal Crisis

Name: Bring Market Prices to Medicare! Essential Reform at a Time of Fiscal Crisis
Price: 16.36 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780844743219

ISBN-10: 0844743216

ISBN-13: 9780844743219

Edition: 2009

Authors: Robert F. Coulam, Roger D. Feldman, Bryan Dowd

List price: $26.00

30 day, 100% satisfaction guarantee!

Buy new: $16.62

Marketplace

2 new & used from $16.36

what's this?

Rush Rewards U
Members Receive:

You have reached 400 XP and carrot coins. That is the daily max!

Medicare is quickly approaching insolvency, in part because the program pays too much for the services it provides. In Bring Market Prices to Medicare, Robert Coulam, Roger Feldman, and Bryan E. Dowd propose a groundbreaking solution: Use market-based arrangements to set prices for Medicare plans. The authors contend that the federal government should pay only the cost of the most economical health plan in each market area. To accomplish this, both traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare and private Medicare Advantage (MA) would submit bids for the government's business; the federal contribution to premiums would be set to equal the lowest bid in each market area. This competitive…

Book details

List price: $26.00
Copyright year: 2009
Publisher: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Publication date: 12/16/2009
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 161
Size: 6.12" wide x 9.05" long x 0.49" tall
Weight: 0.572
Language: English



List of Tables


Acknowledgments


Introduction


Background on the Medicare Program


The History of Private Plans in Medicare


Payments to Private Health Plans


Outline of the Book


The Purposes of Medicare


Reasons to Offer a Public Plan and Private Plans


The Political Disadvantage of a Mixed-Plan System


Five Ways to Pay Medicare Health Plans


MA Payment Policy through 2008


MedPAC's Proposal: Set MA Payments Equal to Average County-Level FFS Spending


Berenson's Proposal: Adjust MA Payments Using MA Cost Reports and Other Data


Competitive Pricing


The Obama Proposal: MA-Only Bidding


Technical Issues in Competitive Pricing for Medicare


Current Payment Arrangements


Do MA Plans' Current "Bids" Reflect Their Costs?


How Should the Government Premium Contribution Be Set?


Estimating the Savings from Competitive Pricing in Medicare


Savings from the Medicare HMO Program


Estimates of Savings and Beneficiary Disruption


Should FFS Medicare Be Allowed Greater Flexibility?


What Should FFS Medicare Be Allowed To Do?


What Should Be Required of FFS Medicare?


The Uneasy Relationship of Competitive Bidding to the Law and Politics of Medicare


Medicare's Attempts to Implement Competitive Pricing


The Exception: Competitive Pricing for a New Part D Benefit


The Rule: Failures in Demonstrations for Existing Services


Competitive Pricing Works in Other Government-Financed Health Care Programs


Is Medicare Different?


Challenges to Future Competitive Pricing Efforts


What Is to Be Done?


No Need for a Demonstration-A Gradual Transition to Reform Should Start Now


What We Know Already about Competitive Pricing Makes a Demonstration Unnecessary


The Controversy of a Demonstration


The Case for Gradualism


Conclusion


Notes


References


Index


About The Authors