Bringing Health Savings Accounts to Medicare

Medicare is in crisis and to date little has been done to address it. Old strategies, such as cutting provider payments, will do little to solve the problem, and may make it worse by driving the best physicians out of Medicare altogether. Ironically the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 authorized all Americans, except those on Medicare, to try a “consumer directed” approach that has the potential to lower costs by changing patient behavior. It is time for Congress to allow Medicare beneficiaries to join the movement to consumer empowerment.