Modernizing Medicare

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Modernizing Medicare

Harnessing the Power of Consumer Choice and Market Competition

Edited by Robert Emmet Moffit and Marie Fishpaw

About the Book

Top policy experts offer Medicare reform solutions for the millions of seniors whose health care depends on America's fastest growing federal entitlement.

In Modernizing Medicare, editors Robert Emmet Moffit and Marie Fishpaw bring together a rare combination of leading scholars and policy practitioners to outline a vision for Medicare reform and provide solutions for the millions of seniors whose health care depends on it. Contributors include a former Medicare trustee, a former Medicare administrator, and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office.

Detailing Medicare's biggest problems, this team of top policy experts offer solutions based on personal freedom of choice, transparency of price and performance, and market competition among health plans and providers that will secure patients more affordable, more accountable, and higher quality medical care. They also address Medicare's reform needs and analyze the promising performance of the Medicare Advantage program. The authors outline Medicare's major financial problems and the best solutions for Medicare patients and taxpayers alike. While Medicare's accelerating spending is generating higher deficits and debt, standard cost-control strategies—such as payment reductions and price controls—jeopardize patients' access to high-quality care.

Contributors: Joseph R. Antos, PhD; Doug Badger; Charles P. Blahous, PhD; Walton F. Francis; John C. Goodman, PhD; Edmund F. Haislmaier; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, PhD; Brian J. Miller, MD, MBA, MPH; Robert Emmet Moffit, PhD; Mark V. Pauly, PhD; Christopher M. Pope, PhD; Gail R. Wilensky, PhD.

This book is a high-level systematic analysis of Medicare reform ideas. The authors take a broad, future-oriented look that rises above the narrow, short-term, budget-oriented squabbles that are so common in what passes for Medicare policy discussions. Health economists, policy analysts, and public finance economists should read this book.

H. E. Frech III

University of California, Santa Barbara

The authors lay out a conservative vision for Medicare reform while providing historical background and discussing the political economy. This book will appeal to readers interested in health care policy and be useful in courses discussing competing health care reform prescriptions.

Loren Adler

Brookings Institution