Medicare Fixes?

It seems like our President is about to announce his plan to make Medicate more affordable and sustainable.

It seems to consist of a number of actions, none of which can be forced.

The primary driver would be to expand telecare.  This is a system that I think it fairly universal in health plans already, where you can call a number to get medical advice.

It does reduce cost but only if people use it instead of actual visits.  We are talking about Medicare and many of the senior are unlikely to switch to an automated system, at least no in enough number to impact spiraling costs very much. Still doing something that health plans already do is about as innovative as this administration gets.

The other ideas involve getting health companies to share some of their profits with subscribers and reducing payments to those negotiated in some Medicare advantage plans.

There is nothing wrong in any of this except it is probably going to have almost no actual impact.

It will be hyped as the greatest reform ever, but when you look behind the curtain there is only a sad little man pulling the levers.