Health economists and policy analysts have long known that Medicare spends much more, per patient, in some parts of the country than in others. In fact, the primary project of a large research group at Dartmouth is devoted to analyzing the geographic patters in Medicare spending. Last year, Atul Gawande brought this phenomenon greater public attention with an article in The New Yorker on medical care in the areas of McAllen and El Paso, two regions in Texas that have superficially similar demographics but vastly different levels of per-patient Medicare …
The Wall Street Journal draws our attention to a burst of honesty from The New Yorker‘s John Cassidy: The future cost savings that the Administration and its congressional allies are promising to deliver are based on wishful thinking and sleight of hand. Over time, the reform, as proposed, would almost certainly add substantially to the budget deficit, thereby worsening the long-term fiscal crisis that the country faces. … The U.S. government is making a costly and open-ended commitment to help provide health coverage for the vast majority of its citizens. …
