August 23, 2012

Stuart Butler

The runaway costs of Medicare require lawmakers to rethink the structure of the health program for seniors, Heritage Foundation scholar Stuart Butler writes in a blog post for the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association.

Such reforms include:

• Using market forces rather than government central planning to deliver Medicare services efficiently; and
• Having higher-income seniors pay a larger portion of their Medicare premiums.

This “evolutionary” solution, Butler argues, contrasts with the “central planning” approach used in Obamacare and favored by liberals.

The sooner these reforms are put in place, the better, he adds:

According to the program’s trustees, Medicare will be unable to pay full benefits within 12 years and it would take nearly $40 trillion to cover its projected costs. That growing shortfall is destined to render the program unsustainable and become the largest element in the tsunami of debt about to engulf the nation.

Heritage has outlined a comprehensive solution to Medicare as part of our Saving the American Dream plan to get America’s finances back on course.

Do you think a market-based approach is superior to the central-planning approach favored by liberals?