Several newspapers on Thursday published editorials responding to a Medicare trustees report issued Tuesday that said the trust fund Medicare uses to pay for beneficiaries' hospital care will be insolvent by 2017, two years earlier than predicted by trustees last year. Summaries of the editorials appear below.
Akron Beacon Journal: While major health care reform can improve Medicare, Congress should not overlook "that there are changes to Medicare alone that would reap savings, roughly $266 billion a year during the next decade," the editorial says. It adds that President Obama's proposal to end overpayments to private insurers participating in Medicare Advantage is one such change. The editorial concludes, "Beyond the legislative combat of crafting change, comes the need to pay more (in taxes) or reduce services and benefits" (Akron Beacon Journal, 5/14).
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Possible remedies" to Medicare's insolvency include "higher premiums, copays and deductibles," a Post-Gazette editorial states. According to the editorial, other ways to aid the program are to reform the health care system "with emphasis on removing excess profits and wasted resources" or to make cuts in military spending. The editorial concludes that news of Medicare's "deteriorating funds" lends "urgency" to reform efforts and "rattle[s] the nerves of the many Americans who depend" on the program (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5/14).
Washington Post: "Even in the face of such bad hews, there are those who will argue against the urgency" of entitlement reform, the editorial states. One argument opponents of reform might use is that Medicare can be fixed only by changing the entire health system, but the editorial says that both the health system and Medicare need "fixing." Politicians have known for years that Social Security and Medicare "are in trouble, ... yet no progress has been made in fixing the programs," the editorial adds. It concludes, "As the trustees highlighted this week, entitlement reform shouldn't wait" (Washington Post, 5/14).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
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