From former U.S. Senator David Durenberger (R- Minn), in his newsletter from the National Institute of Health Policy:
"Everything in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and subsequent Deficit Reduction Act of 2006 - the biggest changes in national policy passed without bipartisan support since 1965 - deserves a 64 -slice MRI exam. It’s a great way to educate Republicans in this Congress who were health policy sheep when it passed three years ago. My hearing agenda starting in January would be:
· The structure and financing of the Medicare Prescription Drug benefit (Part D).
· The decision to move all Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries into private managed care plans and the willingness to spend, on average, $1.20 on insurance companies for every $1.00 spent on doctors and hospitals in Traditional Medicare.
· The fairness and equity issues involved in tax subsidies for Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and solo indemnity insurance which provide $2.50 to wealthy for every $1.00 spent on low-middle income.
· The dis-integration of health care and care systems into silos, focus factories, and other commodities.
· Physician payment reform. Aligning financial incentives in Medicare with the health results we desire. Whom shall we hold accountable and how?
· All health care is local. Quality and practice disparity can be traced. A good geography lesson may teach us the value of measuring and paying for transparent performance.
· The growing disparities in income between primary/cognitive care professionals and proceduralists, especially those benefiting not from the gene pool but from medical technology.
· The growing disparities in income between the owners, managers and directors of for-profit health care companies and those of not-for-profit organizations, which are drying up the talent pool available to the latter, to say nothing of the ethical standards of health professions.
· Why should the richest nation on earth, which already spends twice as much on healthcare per person than any other country, require the 50 states of this nation to insure access for all citizens to basic health care benefits?"