For starters, the federal government should lower the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 55, with the intention of gradually lowering the age limit even further until all Americans qualify for the program. Angell admits this change will cause the Medicare budget to go up, but at the same time, overall health care costs for the country will decline because, she insists, Medicare is a more efficiently-run medical provider than private insurance.

 

Another reform Angell insists upon is raising Medicare fees for primary care doctors and lowering them for specialists. This would reverse a troubling trend of late in which Medicare increasingly has spent more money reimbursing cardiologists, oncologists and other specialists for procedures that aren’t really necessary.

 

Angell offers more suggestions, before concluding that if Congress can’t improve its reform plan, the nation would be better off adopting nothing right now and trying again later.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Is the House Health Care Bill Better than Nothing? (by Marcia Angell, Huffington Post)