Fix Health Care Policy

The Washington Post Agrees: It’s Time to Make a Down Payment on Medicare Reform

The editorial board of The Washington Post, no organ of conservative opinion, is absolutely right: “Medicare as we know it is not sustainable,” and the “ultimate solution” is structural reform. Bingo.

The right structural reform is to expand Medicare’s defined-contribution financing (routinely called “premium support”) as it broadly exists today in Medicare Part D to the entire Medicare program.

As the Post’s editors observe, consensus does not yet exist on Capitol Hill for comprehensive structural reform. However, there are several short-term, bipartisan proposals compatible with structural reform that can improve the program, trim the debt, and reduce the dangerous financial pressures that threaten Medicare’s viability.

The Post’s key recommendations—yielding an estimated 10-year savings of $420 billion—largely track The Heritage Foundation’s proposed changes for traditional Medicare as part of its comprehensive budgetary reform proposal, Saving the American Dream.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: defined-contribution financing, editorial board, Medicare reform, Saving the American Dream, structural reform, The Washington Post