Medicare

Medicare has secured and made more affordable important access to healthcare for generations of American workers and their families. I support preserving and protecting benefits for current and near-term retirees, but due in large part to changing demographics, Americans living longer and the continued rise in health care costs, Medicare faces a sizable gap between scheduled benefits and the revenues needed to fund them. These are challenges where economic and healthcare policy experts agree that the sooner we take actions to address them, the more manageable will be the solutions.

There’s work to be done to modernize the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit in fiscally responsible ways, to make it more affordable for seniors and lower beneficiary cost sharing on some of the most expensive prescription drugs. We also need to consider Medicare reforms aimed at promoting choice, competition, and the role of market prices, which are key elements of the popular and successful Medicare Advantage (Part C) program. This can include liberating telemedicine and accountable care organizations (ACOs), ending payment incentives that are driving doctors to become hospital employees, promoting hospital price transparency, reducing regulatory paperwork, and creating more transparency in the market for prescription drugs.