Live Q&As

Medicare is not bankrupt, however, there is ongoing concern about the rising cost of health care for everyone -- federal and state govt's, employers and individuals -- and the ability of Medicare to be able to be affordable in the future given these ever-rising costs.  We need to tackle the issue of rising health care costs throughout the health care system.

We cannot focus on Medicare alone.  Medicare is part of the health care system.  To help Medicare, we need to tackle rising health care costs system-wide.  There is no single or simple answer.  we need to improve the heatlh care delivery system -- that means better prevention, better coordination of care, better management of chronic conditions, better use of technology, and better use of evidence based medicine, among other strategies.

The new health program will be administered mainly by state-based "Exchanges", not the IRS.  The Exchanges will allow individuals to compare policies that are available in the market with greater transparency.  and there will be more rules in place to prevent the denial of insurance based on pre-existing conditions or to charge people who are older much higher prices based on their age.  Subsidies will also be available for those of moderate incomes.

The health care changes made last year should help to increase access to health care.  We still need do more to hold down the increases in health and prescription drug costs.  We continue to work with Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to tackle the issue of high health care costs.  We agree we need both sides to work together to address this critical problem.

We continue to push for changes that will hold down costs throughout the health care system.  For example, we continue to work with Congress and the Adminstrative agencies to help improve care coordination for those with chronic conditions.  We also continue to push for measures to lower Rx costs, such as by giving Medicare greater power to negotiate drug prices, to allow for the importation of safe lower cost drugs from abroad, and to speed generic drugs to market. 

I can't speak directly about Pennsylvania, but of course there is fraud and waste in the system -- but there is also a great deal of inefficiency, meaning we do too many tests and procedures that are not necessary or in some cases even harmful.  We need to weed out the actual fraud in the system through greater oversight, but we also need to improve the way we practice health care by encouraging quality rather than quantity of care.

You correctly cite the real problem -- that health care costs continue to rise at rates well above inflation.  Part of the debate right now over Medicare often confuses this point -- many of the proposals would simply ask people in Medicare to pay more, rather than tackling the real issue of rising costs.  We need to hold down the costs, not simply shift the higher costs to those in Medicare, many of whom can barely afford health care now.