Browse by Media Hit and Entitlement Reform

The lack of spending cuts in legislation that averted the fiscal cliff will place enormous pressure on entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and even the president’s new heath insurance plan when negotiations begin in coming weeks to reduce the deficit, analysts said Wednesday.

NPR health policy correspondent Julie Rovner cites IPI's Dr. Merrill Matthews on why Medicaid needs a complete overhaul. "Although it's better than not having any insurance, it is bad insurance. And I argue that health care coverage for the poor shouldn't necessarily be poor coverage."

The Orange County Register editorial board writes that vast welfare expansion adds to the looming fiscal catastrophe posed by general entitlement spending. According to IPI's Merrill Matthews and Mark E. Litow, chairman of the Social Insurance Public Finance Section of the Society of Actuaries, "the coming entitlements cliff" is substantially greater than the end-of-the-year fiscal cliff, a combination of expiring Bush-era tax cuts and automatic spending cuts.

In reaction to Gov. Rick Perry's declaration Monday that Texas should decline to expand Medicaid and leave creation of a health insurance exchange to the federal government, Dr. Merrill Matthews is quoted by Dallas Morning News reporter Robert Garrett that if enough states push back, maybe they can get the flexibility to try and actually fix the broken Medicaid system. 

Everyone should know by now that Medicare suffers dramatic long-term deficits and unfunded liabilities, and is in need of fundamental, structural reforms. But effectively refusing to pay the doctors and hospitals that provide the medical care the program promises to seniors is no way to solve that problem.