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The Future of Medicare

Will Medicare be here for future generations or will it be insolvent by 2007? This was one of the important questions discussed at a public dialogue on the future of Medicare, sponsored by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the League of Women Voters Education Fund, on October 17, 1998 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Auditorium in Menlo Park. This was one of ten public meetings to be held throughout the United States.

Five of seven panelists said that neither the future of Medicare nor the future of health care should be left to market forces.

Keynote speaker Thomas Bodenheimer, internist and professor of Medicine at UCSF, called for refinancing Medicare properly to reduce the costs of the entire health care system through reduction of waste and administrative costs.

Moderator Ian Morrison, Chairman of the Health Futures Forum at Anderson Consulting, stressed "the tension between people's willingness to pay and their desire for universality".

Sara Singer, Executive Director of the Center for Economic Policy at Stanford University, indicated that there is no political desire to request higher taxes for government programs and that we need to seek other solutions such as improved managed care and reduction of waste.

Melvin Britton, a rheumatologist at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, stressed that HMOs are valuable and in many cases are providing quality medical care at reasonable costs.

Peter Van Etten, President and CEO of UCSF_Stanford Hospital & Clinics, said that "it is ironic that Medicare pays hospitals and health care providers closer to their actual costs than HMOs do."

Quentin Young, internist and professor and President of the American Public Health Association, called for the improvement and expansion of Medicare and stressed that everyone has the right to good health care.

Robert Sillen, Executive Director of the Santa Clara Valley Health & Hospital System, stated that the problems facing Medicare are political rather than financial and that we must address issues such as the need for health care for everyone and campaign finance reform. We must get citizens out to vote to let our leaders know that we want good health care for everyone.

The 250 audience members completed questionnaires on their opinions about Medicare and their suggestions and priorities for reform, to be forwarded by the League of Women Voters to the Congressional Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare.

Jean Meddaugh, Los Altos/Mountain View League of Women Voters

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