As David Hyman explains in Medicare Meets Mephistopheles (book forum today), Medicare’s already-high tax burden is set to explode when the baby boomers begin to retire in 2011. Yet for all that money, the quality of care that Medicare delivers is downright mediocre.
Some members of Congress, led by Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R‑IA), are using the threat of a cut in Medicare payments to force physicians to accept tying those payments to government-defined quality measures.
Physicians, led by the American Medical Association, are essentially responding, “Ditch the planned pay cut — then we’ll talk.”
Who’s right? Whose approach will get seniors and taxpayers the most value for their Medicare dollars? No one really knows, and thus all the political wrangling.
But one thing can be known: the approach that Congress chooses will be determined by raw political power — not by what provides the greatest value. For example, if the physicians get their way, every bit of quality improvement will cost taxpayers more money, because the AMA won’t even support pay cuts for lousy doctors.
As I explain in a recent paper, that is exactly why we don’t want Congress itself in the business of measuring and rewarding health care quality. That task is better left to a competitive market process. Congress should confine “pay-for-performance” to private Medicare plans, and encourage greater enrollment in private plans by giving seniors risk-adjusted vouchers rather than a defined benefit.
