Project Overview

Series editors:  Robert B. Helms and Joseph Antos

What ails Medicare is what ails health care in America. Medicare spending is growing substantially faster than we can afford, with potentially disastrous consequences for the federal budget. Worse, although the program is paying for more services, it is not necessarily providing better care for the elderly. AEI’s Studies on Medicare Reform is designed to examine the program’s operation, consider alternative policy options, and develop a set of realistic proposals that could form the basis for reform legislation. 

By commissioning original studies from some of the nation’s leading health economists and analysts, AEI’s project will establish a foundation for prompt legislative action, present the major constraints that will limit the range of policy options, and develop a set of realistic proposals for fundamental reform. In particular, the project will explore whether and how Medicare can employ market-based incentives for efficiency. 

Medicare Reform Series

The Diagnosis and Treatment of Medicare
By Andrew J. Rettenmaier and Thomas R. Saving, Texas A&M University
AEI Press (Washington)
Publication Date: April 2007

In the first book released as part of the Medicare Reform Series, Rettenmaier and Saving call for a rethinking of Medicare's financing, its benefit structure and its future. The authors evaluate a series of previously suggested remedies as well as put forward their own "prepayment" solution.

Additional Resources
Coming soon. . .