{"id":246127,"date":"2012-08-19T15:41:25","date_gmt":"2012-08-19T15:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenesis.com\/gop-vp-candidate-calls-sgr-ridiculous\/"},"modified":"2012-08-19T15:41:25","modified_gmt":"2012-08-19T15:41:25","slug":"gop-vp-candidate-calls-sgr-ridiculous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/pathology\/gop-vp-candidate-calls-sgr-ridiculous.php","title":{"rendered":"GOP VP Candidate calls SGR “Ridiculous”"},"content":{"rendered":"

 Courtesy of ModernHealthcare<\/a> Healthcare Business News<\/span><\/p>
\"Rep<\/a><\/span>
Ryan<\/span><\/div><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

<\/p><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

Exclusive interview: Rep. Paul Ryan<\/a> discusses need for 'market-based' health reform<\/span><\/h1>
Premium support an idea whose time has come, Ryan says<\/span><\/div>

By Andis Robeznieks<\/a><\/span><\/p>

Posted: August 14, 2012 - 12:45 pm ET<\/span><\/div>
Tags: Healthcare Reform<\/a>, Legislation<\/a>, Medicare<\/a>, Mitt Romney<\/a>, Paul Ryan<\/a>, Payers<\/a>, Physicians<\/a>, Reimbursement<\/a><\/span><\/div>
Wisconsin<\/a> Rep. Paul Ryan's selection as the Republican vice presidential nominee has put Medicare reform back in the national spotlight, as Ryan's plans for transforming Medicare into a \"premium support\" system gain renewed attention.<\/span>

Of particular significance is how Ryan's plan to offer beneficiaries federal payments<\/a> to pick the health plan of their choice goes over with voters in Florida and Pennsylvania—two presidential battleground states with large Medicare-beneficiary populations.<\/span><\/p>

Ryan, who finished first last year on Modern Healthcare's 100 Most Influential People in Healthcare list<\/a>, was interviewed Aug. 2 by Modern Healthcare for an upcoming story, just nine days before presumptive GOP<\/a> presidential nominee Mitt Romney announced that the 42-year-old member of the House Ways and Means Committee<\/a> would be his running mate.<\/span><\/p><\/div>

<\/p>

In the interview, Ryan emphasized that premium support wasn't only his idea or a Republican idea. He pointed out that he proposed last year's Medicare-reform plan jointly with Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden<\/a>. Premium support's origins, he added, can be traced to President Bill Clinton's 1999 Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare and its Democratic co-chair, Rep. John Breaux of Louisiana.<\/span>

\"This is an idea whose time has come,\" Ryan said. \"And it's a bipartisan idea.\"<\/span><\/p>

Ryan acknowledged that the idea takes some getting used to and said he knew that Congress would not pass last year's proposal.<\/span><\/p>

\"What Ron Wyden and I tried to do was to plant the seeds of a bipartisan consensus,\" Ryan said. \"We knew we weren't going to pass it because of the politics. We did this together to get the consensus-building started.\"<\/span><\/p>

To that end, Ryan said the plan's chances for approval will greatly improve next year.<\/span><\/p>

\"I'm actually pretty optimistic,\" he said.<\/span><\/p>

Ryan said he heard from \"some of his doctor friends\" at the Wisconsin Medical Society that his plan was the subject of heated debate<\/a> at the annual American Medical Association House of Delegates meeting in June and that he has had \"years of conversations\" about premium support with physicians in his state.<\/span><\/p>

“I think it's a good debate,” he said. Medicare, Ryan said, can go in two directions: toward government-directed price controls as dictated by the Independent Payment Advisory Board or toward premium support, which he said \"keeps the patient-doctor relationship intact.\"<\/span><\/p>

\"That to me is the best way to deal with costs and save this program,\" Ryan said. \"Competition does work.\"<\/span><\/p>

Ryan said he envisions a risk-adjusted program in which beneficiaries who need more support get it and said that risk adjustment is \"something CMS knows how to do.\"<\/span><\/p>

\"Physicians are also involved in getting proper incentive alignment focused on quality and cost,\" Ryan stated. <\/span><\/p>

“This will help everyone: Sick or healthy, wealthy and poor,” he added. “We can put society's assets where they need to go and emerge from that with a system that is in keeping with our goals of innovation, competition and quality improvement.”<\/span><\/p>

Ryan also said the U.S. should undertake healthcare reform on its own and \"fix this on our terms\" instead of borrowing ideas from Europe.<\/span><\/p>

\"We believe there are far superior ways to get back to a patient-centered healthcare system, the nucleus of which is the patient and her doctor—and not the government,\" Ryan said. \"We believe consumer-driven, market-based reforms do more to alter the cost curve of healthcare inflation.\"<\/span><\/p>

Ryan said price controls won't bend the healthcare inflation cost curve and would lead to rationing of services.<\/span><\/p>

Ryan credited his selection last year as the most influential person in healthcare to his having had a seat on the House Ways and Means Committee since 2001 and used that position to focus on the healthcare system's impact on health outcomes and economic and social issues.<\/span><\/p>

\"It's just something I've immersed myself in,\" Ryan said. \"What a lot of policymakers have failed to grasp is how important healthcare is to our economy and to our future.\"<\/span><\/p>

Ryan also predicted that Congress would approve another temporary postponement<\/a> of a physician Medicare payment cut in January of around 30% under the sustainable growth-rate formula used to calculate reimbursement.<\/span><\/p>

\"I think the SGR is ridiculous and should have been replaced long ago,\" Ryan said, adding that he hopes to replace the SGR next year with a formula that furnishes doctors with something predictable and accountable so that \"we don't have this can-kicking exercise every six months.\"<\/span><\/p>

While the SGR has not worked, Ryan said something worse lurks ahead.<\/span><\/p>

“I always say to the doctors, 'If you don't like the SGR, just wait until you see what the IPAB has in store,'” Ryan said.<\/span><\/p><\/div><\/div>

Read more: Exclusive interview: Rep. Paul Ryan discusses need for 'market-based' health reform, Premium support an idea whose time has come, Ryan says | Modern Healthcare <\/a><\/span><\/p>

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Democrats plot attacks on 'ideological leader' Ryan<\/a>Medicare rises as prime election issue<\/a><\/span><\/div>
<\/a>Report notes CMS drug overpayments; potential savings seen in new pricing initiative<\/a><\/span><\/div>

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Source:
http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/DigitalPathologyBlog<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 Courtesy of ModernHealthcare Healthcare Business NewsRyanExclusive interview: Rep. Paul Ryan discusses need for 'market-based' health reformPremium support an idea whose time has come, Ryan saysBy Andis RobeznieksPosted: August 14, 2012 - 12:45 pm ETTags: Healthcare Reform, Legislation, Medicare, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Payers, Physicians, ReimbursementWisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's selection … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[577487],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pathology"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246127"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}