Volume 50, Number 20 · December 18, 2003
Health for Sale
By Jeff Madrick
Transformation of the Welfare State: The Silent Surrender of Public Responsibility
by Neil Gilbert, with a foreword by Amitai Etzioni
Oxford University Press, 208 pp., $29.95
Taxing Ourselves: A Citizen's Guide to the Great Debate over Tax Reform
by Joel Slemrod and Jon Bakija
MIT Press, 348 pp., $40.00; $22.95 (paper)
The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States
by Jacob S. Hacker
Cambridge University Press, 447 pp., $55.00; $23.00
Banking on Death: Or, Investing in Life: The History and Future of Pensions
by Robin Blackburn
Verso, 550 pp., $30.00; $19.00 (paper)
That the US has adopted a more and more constricted view of the uses of government is especially evident in the recent debate over a prescription drug plan for the elderly. After bitter negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the legislation, a bill was reported on November 17 to Congress for a vote. If it passes, it will be the most expensive addition to federal health care since the 1960s. Even so, at a projected cost of $400 billion over ten years, it is widely considered inadequate. Medicare, the federal health plan for the elderly, now reimburses recipients almost exclusively for drugs administered in hospitals. But the costs of outpatient prescription drugs for the average Medicare beneficiary are reaching punitive levels. Out-of-pocket costs are expected to rise from $644 a year in 2000 to $1,454 in 2006. Even with $400 billion, the new legislation will reimburse only about one third of the beneficiaries' total out-of-pocket drug costs,[1] and the program will not even begin until 2006. The current bill will also make it possible to impose a limit on future increases in Medicare expenditures and create tax-free savings plans for individuals to pay for private services.
Review, 4915 words
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