My immediate reaction on reading James Capretta’s post at RealClearHealth, “Medicare Can’t Be Ignored Forever”:
For now, Medicare is not part of the national conversation on health care. While campaigning, Donald Trump promised not to touch Medicare, and, in his first budget, he basically kept that commitment to voters. In addition, Congress and the new administration are consumed with rolling back key elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and replacing them with different provisions. Medicare does not feature prominently in that debate.
was to wonder what planet he’s been on? While it may be the case that the Congressional Republicans want to ignore Medicare because they don’t care to engage in failure-oriented activities, it’s certainly part of the “national conversation”. I suggest googling “Medicare for all” to get an idea.
That is not to argue that Medicare for all is workable or economically practical or even politically possible. But just because you don’t want to talk about something does not mean it’s not being talked about.
Proportional to its percentage of our national budget, and as a primary driver of future debt, Medicare receives way less attention than it should, and needs. Also, remember that Trump said he wouldn’t change it.
Steve
I think that the Medicare HI Trust Fund will provide an interesting test case. Some time between 2022 and 2030 the trust fund is expected to be fully depleted, depending on which estimate of costs you believe. Either Medicare will be reformed, the tab will be paid from the general fund, or hospitals won’t be paid.
5-13 years by your estimate, and look at how much attention it gets in Congress or even the general press. At the risk of sounding partisan, which I certainly can be, I can regularly find articles and papers on the left side or neutral side of the spectrum and Medicare and its problems. On the right side of the political spectrum? Not so much. To be fair (maybe), the right just doesn’t discuss health care in general as much.
Steve
As I say the Republicans don’t want to engage in what would be a failure-oriented activity for them.