Medicare
Commentary
Medicare Pays Billions For Obesity’s Consequences. Its GLP-1 Bridge Offers A Better Way
Medicare spends billions of dollars each year treating heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, cancer and other illnesses caused or worsened by obesity. Yet for decades, federal law has barred the program from covering medicines prescribed to treat obesity itself. In other words, Medicare has been willing to pay for the ...
Commentary
Medicare Takes A Smart Step Toward Site-Neutral Payments
One of Medicare’s most puzzling rules has nothing to do with the care patients receive. For many routine outpatient services, it pays substantially more when care is delivered in a hospital-owned facility than when the exact same service is performed in an independent physician’s office or ambulatory surgery center. This ...
Commentary
Medicare’s ‘efficiency’ cut will reduce access, not costs
Many physicians received another pay cut this year, courtesy of Medicare. Under the program’s new physician fee schedule, Medicare reimbursement for the vast majority of physician-provided services will effectively decline by 2.5%. Medicare officials justify the change as an “efficiency adjustment.” The theory is that doctors have gotten more productive ...
Commentary
Trump Has a Subsidy Alternative, We Should Take it Seriously
In a social media post earlier this month, President Trump laid out his own alternative to the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that fueled the record-breaking 43-day government shutdown. “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order ...
Commentary
Medicare’s Paltry Doctor Payments Are Price Controls In Disguise
Specialist physicians will receive a significant pay cut from Medicare next year. That’s the main takeaway from the 2026 physician fee schedule released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in October. For years, physician reimbursement from Medicare has stagnated, even declined. Doctors are responding by leaving the profession ...
Commentary
Medicare Wasn’t Broken Until Democrats Made It That Way
Seniors shopping for a prescription drug plan during this year’s Medicare open enrollment season are in for an unpleasant surprise. They’ll have far fewer choices than in previous years — and will have a harder time getting assistance purchasing a plan. The program’s cost to taxpayers, meanwhile, have soared. What ...
Commentary
Medicare Can’t Afford Not To Cover Ozempic
The Trump administration has yet to decide whether Medicare will cover a revolutionary new class of weight-loss treatments, which include drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy. But a decision could be imminent, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Speaking at an event at ...
Commentary
Lousy Medicare Insurance Is Worsening Outcomes For All Patients
Medicare’s long-term financial outlook is in dire straits. While spending is already historically high, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that, without fundamental reform, things will only get worse. According to the CBO, total government spending will grow from 23.3% of GDP in 2025 to 26.6% in 2055. Almost two-thirds ...
Health Care
Dr. Wayne Winegarden – Competition is Key to Affordable, High-Quality Health Care
This week, Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, joins us to discuss his new brief exploring how forthcoming restrictions in a state program serving dual-eligible Medicare and Medi-Cal enrollees will hurt patients. He discusses how the movement in government both in California and nationally ...
Commentary
Seniors Will Soon Pay the Price for Biden’s Medicare Misstep
Seniors can expect to pay more for their Medicare prescription drug insurance next year. And they have the Biden administration’s signature policy achievement — the Inflation Reduction Act — to thank. According to a recent announcement by the Trump administration, Medicare Part D drug benefit premiums are expected to increase ...
Medicare Pays Billions For Obesity’s Consequences. Its GLP-1 Bridge Offers A Better Way
Medicare spends billions of dollars each year treating heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, cancer and other illnesses caused or worsened by obesity. Yet for decades, federal law has barred the program from covering medicines prescribed to treat obesity itself. In other words, Medicare has been willing to pay for the ...
Medicare Takes A Smart Step Toward Site-Neutral Payments
One of Medicare’s most puzzling rules has nothing to do with the care patients receive. For many routine outpatient services, it pays substantially more when care is delivered in a hospital-owned facility than when the exact same service is performed in an independent physician’s office or ambulatory surgery center. This ...
Medicare’s ‘efficiency’ cut will reduce access, not costs
Many physicians received another pay cut this year, courtesy of Medicare. Under the program’s new physician fee schedule, Medicare reimbursement for the vast majority of physician-provided services will effectively decline by 2.5%. Medicare officials justify the change as an “efficiency adjustment.” The theory is that doctors have gotten more productive ...
Trump Has a Subsidy Alternative, We Should Take it Seriously
In a social media post earlier this month, President Trump laid out his own alternative to the enhanced Obamacare subsidies that fueled the record-breaking 43-day government shutdown. “I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order ...
Medicare’s Paltry Doctor Payments Are Price Controls In Disguise
Specialist physicians will receive a significant pay cut from Medicare next year. That’s the main takeaway from the 2026 physician fee schedule released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in October. For years, physician reimbursement from Medicare has stagnated, even declined. Doctors are responding by leaving the profession ...
Medicare Wasn’t Broken Until Democrats Made It That Way
Seniors shopping for a prescription drug plan during this year’s Medicare open enrollment season are in for an unpleasant surprise. They’ll have far fewer choices than in previous years — and will have a harder time getting assistance purchasing a plan. The program’s cost to taxpayers, meanwhile, have soared. What ...
Medicare Can’t Afford Not To Cover Ozempic
The Trump administration has yet to decide whether Medicare will cover a revolutionary new class of weight-loss treatments, which include drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy. But a decision could be imminent, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Speaking at an event at ...
Lousy Medicare Insurance Is Worsening Outcomes For All Patients
Medicare’s long-term financial outlook is in dire straits. While spending is already historically high, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that, without fundamental reform, things will only get worse. According to the CBO, total government spending will grow from 23.3% of GDP in 2025 to 26.6% in 2055. Almost two-thirds ...
Dr. Wayne Winegarden – Competition is Key to Affordable, High-Quality Health Care
This week, Dr. Wayne Winegarden, director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation, joins us to discuss his new brief exploring how forthcoming restrictions in a state program serving dual-eligible Medicare and Medi-Cal enrollees will hurt patients. He discusses how the movement in government both in California and nationally ...
Seniors Will Soon Pay the Price for Biden’s Medicare Misstep
Seniors can expect to pay more for their Medicare prescription drug insurance next year. And they have the Biden administration’s signature policy achievement — the Inflation Reduction Act — to thank. According to a recent announcement by the Trump administration, Medicare Part D drug benefit premiums are expected to increase ...