For Immediate Release

Contact: John M. Martino
Phone Number:  (215) 895-1186
Date: 05/28/03

Medicare Symposium Focuses on Reform 

At a symposium focusing on Medicare reform at University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP) last week, the three immediate past administrators of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS, formerly HCFA) agreed that while the Medicare system needs broad reform, short-term solutions such as fixed government contributions or changing purchasing contracts will not address the overall needs. All agreed that immediate attention should turn to a prescription drug benefit, especially to protect the lowest income beneficiaries.

“Medicare has done what we asked it to do, but it was designed to look like a normal health care plan in the 1960s,” said Gail Wilensky, who was joined for the first time ever by both Bruce Vladeck and Nancy-Ann DeParle to speak on a single panel. “We need to modernize the system but it will take time.”

The symposium, organized by USP’s health policy program, drew more than 200 leading healthcare policymakers, researchers, and pharmaceutical executives. Dr. Samuel Thier, professor of medicine and health care policy at Harvard University, moderated the discussion. AstraZeneca provided an unrestricted educational grant to underwrite the program.

While Congress reviews several Medicare reform bills and attempts to pass something before the summer recess, the panelists concluded that “phasing in” broad reform would work best to modernize Medicare. The group identified certain areas for long-term improvements:

• Improving information technology systems, for faster claims resolution for providers and for better quality management;
• Improving the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, including offering financial incentives to providers for meeting performance measures;
• Improving the effectiveness of the bureaucracy; and
• Educating providers and beneficiaries on both successes and cost issues.

Dr. Thier reiterated that before policymakers can understand how to best finance the system and how to strike a balance between the roles of government and the private sector, they need to test a few ideas. He added, “The system is not in immediate danger and we can do more harm than good if we introduce changes that haven’t been demonstrated to work.”

One way to immediately begin getting more insight for broad Medicare reform, the panelists recommended, is to better analyze available data and research. Another recommendation is to conduct demonstration projects in various geographic regions and evaluate the outcomes. Those projects demonstrating best practices could serve as a template for the nation at-large.

Despite Medicare’s prominence, the program faces critical challenges. The system is expected to remain solvent until 2026, but experts predict it will begin running a cash deficit by 2013. In the coming decades, the number of elderly beneficiaries will rise while the proportion of wage-earning taxpayers will shrink. The array of expensive new life-saving technologies will continue to increase, but the system’s ability to sustain these options will decrease.

University of the Science in Philadelphia’s graduate health policy program offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees with curricula focusing on professional analysis and research in health policy. Ongoing research covers a broad range of topics affecting national health policy debates, including issues in the structure of health care regulation, insurance benefit design, physician-patient interactions, urban health, physician prescribing behavior, and human research subjects protection. The program also presents symposia and conferences on major national health care issues.

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