Friday, January 11, 2008

Medicare is healthcare...you can’t fix one without the other

The Kaiser Family Foundation has issued a new Medicare brief worth a read. It’s a comprehensive look at Medicare’s financing and long-term solvency issues, which thankfully goes way beyond the “we can’t afford entitlements” crisis calls so popular within the Bush administration.

Financing Medicare: An Issue Brief draws many of the same conclusions offered by the Congressional Budget Office and which we’ve offered here in the past. Kaiser researchers say:


“Tackling the challenge of slowing growth in overall health care costs will require changes throughout the health care system rather than in Medicare alone. The federal government could play a leadership role in addressing national health care spending trends through its obligations to finance health care for the elderly and disabled through Medicare.”

We’d take it a step further to say the word “could” really must be “should” because the next administration needs to tackle health care reform in a serious way, if we hope to be prepared for an increasing population of aging Americans.

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