At her "Right Turn" blog, the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin breaks down President Obama's plan for reducing Medicare costs. The entire plan revolves around Medicare's Independent Payment Advisory Board. IPAB is charged with reducing Medicare costs, without any authority to reform the system itself. The only tool IPAB has at its disposal is across-the-board reductions in reimbursement rates to providers. The rate reductions necessary to keep Medicare solvent are expected to drive considerable numbers of providers to simply stop accepting Medicare patients. "It's rationing, plain and simple," writes Rubin.
It’s rationing, plain and simple. Or in more stark terms: The Ryan plan asks wealthier Medicare recipients to pay more; Obama’s plan denies care. Imagine if a Republican proposed a plan that, without any realistic reform element, simply said we’d pay much less for seniors’ care.
The Obama plan supposes that the 15 bureaucrats on the IPAB will unlock the wonders of cost control that have eluded us all. But it boils down to a confusion between costs and expenditures. The Obama plan will have us paying less but leave the underlying costs of medical care untouched.
Recall that cost-control was, after all, the basis for Obama’s health-care reform. In a white paper for the Galen Institute, Capretta wrote: “So the crucial question was always what to do about cost escalation. Or, more precisely, what changes in Medicare have the best chance of bringing about continual improvement in the productivity and quality of patient care?”
The Weekly Standard's Mark Hemingway wonders, in light of Rubin's observations, why Republicans are not playing offense here. What are your thoughts on the issue?
