AEI is rereleasing some of its most prescient and groundbreaking works from its earliest thinkers and innovators. These books, part of a series called AEI Classics, are available for download as Adobe Acrobat PDFs.
“Dan Shaviro is that rare scholar who can blend legal and economic thinking in designing social reform. In this masterpiece of logic, he takes us outside the narrow debate over what we get and asks the fundamental question of who should pay for it. Only with approaches like Shaviro’s are we ever going to face up to the types of Medicare—and broader health care—reforms that sooner or later we must undertake.”
—Eugene Steuerle, Urban Institute
Good news first? The good news is that Americans today are living longer, in part because of continual advances in healthcare. But the bad news is that though our aging population is larger than ever before, nothing is being done to ensure that we will be able to afford the increasing costs of care. How Medicare--with a costly new prescription drug benefit and uncertain economy--will meet the needs of its recipients without adequate financing is among the most pressing issues facing this country today.
Daniel Shaviro sees the future of our national healthcare system as hinging on funding. The author of books on the economic issues surrounding Social Security and budget deficits, Shaviro is a skilled guide for anyone seeking to understand the financial aspects of government programs. Who Should Pay for Medicare? offers an accessible overview of how Medicare operates as a fiscal system. Discussions of Medicare reform often focus on the expansion of program treatment choices but not on the question of who should pay for Medicare’s services. Shaviro’s book addresses this critical issue, examining the underanalyzed dynamics of the significant funding gap facing Medicare. He gives a balanced, nonpartisan evaluation of various reform alternatives and attendant issues—ranging from the creation of new benefits and the use of tax cuts to the consequences of demographic pressures on future generations to pay for the care of today’s seniors.
Who Should Pay for Medicare? speaks to seniors who feel entitled to expanded coverage, younger people who wonder what to expect from the government when they retire, and Washington policy makers who need an indispensable guidebook to Medicare’s future.
Daniel Shaviro is professor of law at New York University School of Law. He is author of Making Sense of Social Security Reform and Do Deficits Matter?, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
What lies ahead for Cuba after Castro? Mark Falcoff writes that an economically unviable and otherwise dysfunctional Cuba could in coming years pose an even bigger threat to the United States than in its communist heyday.
The promise of "healthy aging" offers significant opportunities for economic growth and development for Europe in the decades ahead--if governments and citizens are willing to grasp them.
