These four measures alone, however, will be inadequate to meet Medicare’s longer-term commitment to future beneficiaries. Closer examination of the impending baby-boomer avalanche highlights both the difficulty and the urgency of revitalizing its ability to do so. During the 1990s and continuing through this decade, Medicare’s annual enrollment growth has been minimal as two million [...]

Private health plans, namely Medicare health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and preferred provider organizations (PPOs), in assuming responsibility for all medical costs of their enrollees, do offer real opportunities for savings. That potential is leveraged by the fact that more than 80% of Medicare’s costs are incurred by the sickest 20% of enrollees,6 a popula­tion whose [...]

Helping these underserved constituencies will require supplementing the aging traditional Medicare with more functional and durable enhancements. For a prototype of just such a model, we need only turn to a decades-old, soundly financed, and hugely popular All-American Plan. This plan is offered by a nationwide, heavily unionized employer with more than two million retirees. [...]

ORIGINS OF MEDICARE’S BANKRUPTCY Repeal of the bill would be reckless on two counts:

Recently, I was fortunate enough to watch Michael Silver, PhD, in action. Dr. Silver is Vice President of a consulting company called Sg2-Health Care Intelligence in Evanston, Illinois. I have the privilege of seeing many capable speakers during the course of a year as I visit hospitals and health systems across the country. Dr. Silver [...]

Yes, it’s that time of year again—no, I’m not talking about the presidential election, or the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy, or the fact that it will soon be dark when we get up and when we go home. I’m talking, of course, about the appearance of the long-awaited (?) fourth annual geriatrics issue of P&T.

While formulary guidelines for the new Medicare outpatient drug benefit are being hotly contested, as described last month in P&T, there are also considerable differences of opinion about the composition and authority of the P&T committees that will be appointed by each prescription drug plan (PDP) to ride herd over their formularies.