The new medicare bill
This is one debate I simply have not had time to follow. Brad DeLong, however, offers two posts, the first notes that the prescription drug benefit has no funding source. The second, drawing on Henry Aaron, notes that the insurance component of the bill is far from ideal, here is one excerpt, Brad quoting Henry Aaron:
The design of the bill’s drug insurance makes little sense. Any plan that covers the three-hundredth dollar a person spends on drugs in a year, but provides no coverage for that person’s three thousandth dollar of spending has to be regarded as a bit wacky. Yet that is what this bill would do. It would end federal support for Medicaid drug benefits if patients are also eligible for Medicare, even where the new Medicare coverage would be narrower than existing Medicaid coverage. At the same time, it does nothing to remedy Medicare’s other major failings. It does not cap out-of-pocket costs, even though almost all policies covering the nonelderly provide this essential “stop-loss” protection. It provides no additional help to pay crippling nursing home costs, which are poorly covered under the current program. And it does nothing to help the half of the poor elderly and disabled who now receive no help with premiums and cost sharing they can ill afford.
Even worse, the conference committee bill could single out Medicare for unfair benefit cuts or payroll tax increases in the future. Currently, Medicare hospital benefits (part A) are covered by a dedicated payroll tax. Revenues from this tax now exceed costs and, together with the excess collections from past years (which are deposited in the Hospital Insurance trust fund), are sufficient to cover benefits through 2026. Under current law, three-fourths of the cost of Medicare’s Supplemental Medical Insurance (SMI or part B), which covers doctors bills, durable medical equipment, and certain other expenses, are paid from general revenues and the balance by beneficiary premiums.
I’m still a bit baffled by the whole issue, but it appears we have to write down yet another case (e.g., profligate domestic spending increases, various protectionist measures, the stalled energy bill, etc.) of bad economic policy from the people downtown.