Categories:
Economics of Health Care
A podcast in which I talk about health care policy.
Andrew J. Rettenmaier and Thomas R. Saving offer a proposal to control Medicare costs by encouraging higher savings along with higher co-payments and deductibles.
John Goodman dissects the notion of a public health care plan competing with private plans.
CNN money reports that much of the stimulus spending in the first 100 days went for Medicaid. To deal with the crisis of unemployment among medical workers, I suppose.
READER COMMENTS
spencer
Apr 27 2009 at 3:52pm
Yes, $14.5 billion already spent on medicaid is clearly much of the $498 billion stimulus package.
It is neat how you blame CNN for the report so when people see how misleading it is you can deny responsibility.
Freedom Thinker
Apr 27 2009 at 4:24pm
I only wish somebody would listen. People demand their right to health care/medical care. But as Medicare/Medicaid expands it will continue to eat away at private insurance which will continue to put further downward pressure on us in the medical care industry.
I doubt this debate can be reversed.
The Snob
Apr 27 2009 at 6:52pm
Spencer: Read the article Arnold cites. SO FAR, the government has only spent $14.5 billion of the monies appropriated. 3 months ago we were told that if the bill wasn’t passed RIGHT NOW, the skies would fall in on us. Save for the pig flu, many people are feeling a bit better, despite the fact that none of the porkulus has been spent on roads, bridges, or other stimulatory stimuli.
Of course, one could reasonably argue that expectations of receiving stimulus funds in the future would be almost as good for restoring the “animal spirits” as getting cash money today. But then one would have to defend against the argument that expectations of higher future tax rates would not reverse all or most of the benefit.
Dan Weber
Apr 28 2009 at 12:44pm
I don’t want to be a negative Nellie, but the engineering of that podcast is really poor. I had to crank my volume way up, and it even sounds like I’m listening through a wall.
I enjoyed the content, but I had to fight for it.
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