Who would have thought? You allow the government to negotiate prices and the costs go down. Now just think if everyone wanted the government to make healthcare cheaper, instead of cutting benefits, what would happen?
Something strange has been happening in this giant federal program. Instead of growing and growing, as it always had before, spending per Medicare beneficiary has nearly leveled off over more than a decade.
Here is the most sobering fact of all: Across the USA, almost 20 million baby boomers have already died.Apr 22, 2023
There were actually a total of 76 million births in the United States from 1946 to 1964, the 19 years usually called the “baby boom.” Of the 76 million baby boomers born, nearly 11 million had died by 2012, leaving some 65.2 million survivors.
Millennials were the largest generation group in the U.S. in 2022, with an estimated population of 72.24 million . Born between 1981 and 1996, Millennials recently surpassed Baby Boomers as the biggest group, and they will continue to be a major part of the population for many years.
What the article said was
“…most of the savings can’t be attributed to any obvious policy shift. In a recent letter to the Senate Budget Committee, economists at the Congressional Budget Office described the huge reductions in its Medicare forecasts between 2010 and 2020. Most of those reductions came from a category the budget office calls ‘technical adjustments,’ which it uses to describe changes to public health and the practice of medicine itself.”
It will be interesting to see what happens 40 years from now…
DB2
Ahh Bob you seemed to have missed this. Nobody wants to give the Affordable Care Act any recognition. I wonder why that is?
Some of the reductions are easy to explain. Congress changed Medicare policy. The biggest such shift came with the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which reduced Medicare’s payments to hospitals and to health insurers that offered private Medicare Advantage plans. Congress also cut Medicare payments as part of a budget deal in 2011.
Andy
Why? As quoted above, " …most of the savings can’t be attributed to any obvious policy shift. "
That is a clear and straightforward statement.
DB2
** Some of the reductions are easy to explain. Congress changed Medicare policy. The biggest such shift came with the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which reduced Medicare’s payments to hospitals and to health insurers that offered private Medicare Advantage plans. Congress also cut Medicare payments as part of a budget deal in 2011.**
I agree with you it is clear and straightforward.
Andy