Reforming Medicare: Options, Tradeoffs, and Opportunities

Medicare is a critical element of the American health system, covering most of the health care spending for more than forty million senior citizens and people with disabilities. The program has been popular, but its benefits are limited and it does little to enhance the quality of care received. And it is now growing faster than America's ability to pay for it. How can and should the system be improved? Reforming Medicare offers a clear guide to the debate over Medicare reform - a national discussion that roust not be delayed.
Health policy experts Henry Aaron and Jeanne Lambrew provide a critical examination of the current program as well as the key proposals for reforming it. They evaluate Medicare's success and then explore how the major reform proposals - social insurance, premium support, and consumer-driven models - would affect the system in terms of ensuring access, promoting quality of care, and controlling costs. In clearly illustrating how each strategy would work for a typical beneficiary, the authors reveal the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Jeanne M. Lambrew is an associate professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, at the University of Texas-Austin, and she is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress.