Senate Finance Committee: Medicare is Broken

Dennis Smith / May 06, 2009

Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley, the Chairman and Ranking Member respectively of the powerful Senate Committee on Finance have just delivered an indictment of the current health care system, including, strangely enough, the traditional Medicare program that top liberal health policy analysts and many in Congress want to use as the model of a new public health plan. The Baucus/Grassley policy options on Transforming the Health Care Delivery System: Proposals to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Health Care Costs shows:

• Senator Baucus agrees with conservative policy analysts. Including those of the Heritage Foundation that the traditional Medicare Fee-for-Service model is broken and should be abandoned. This goes against the traditional grain of congressional policy-making, which has sustained and protected the Medicare payment system from any serious market-based reform, including competitive bidding for medical equipment and supplies (more…)