Commentary: Medicare Options

Commentary Color vision: Opsins and options

A recent estimate suggests that we can potentially distinguish 2.3 million colors (1), and yet we achieve this by comparing the rates at which photons are absorbed in just three classes of retinal photopigment (Fig. 1 Lower). The photopigments consist of 11-cis-retinal bound to different ‘‘opsins,’’ which are members of the large family of G-protein-coupled receptors or heptahelicals. But our e...

Options to Improve Quality and Efficiency Among Medicare Physicians

Effects of Options on Spending for Medicare Benefits

Notes Unless otherwise indicated, the years referred to in this report are calendar years. The estimates for the next 10 years were generated using the Congressional Budget Office's March 2012 baseline projections of Medicare spending, and the analysis of longer-term effects was based on the agency's June 2012 long-term projections of Medicare spending. (Those were the most recent projections a...

Effects of selected fee schedule options on physicians' Medicare receipts

The Congress has indicated interest in modifying the system by which Medicare pays for physicians' services, and implementation of a Medicare fee schedule may be the most feasible change in the near term. In this article, the effects on physicians' Medicare receipts of a variety of fee schedules are simulated using 1984 Medicare claims data for a nationally representative sample of physician pr...

A Premium Support System for Medicare: Analysis of Illustrative Options

Over the past two decades, numerous proposals have been advanced for the establishment of a premium support system for Medicare. Under such a program, beneficiaries would purchase health insurance from one of a number of competing plans, and the federal government would pay part of the cost of the coverage. The various proposals have differed in many respects, including the way in which the fed...