As I have noted here, here, here and a few other places, the 2012 MedPAC Data Book is out. Of course, most of the data is for 2010 or earlier but it's the latest/greatest (this is the government after all).
Above is some important information from Section 4 of the data concerning the high and growing quality of Medicare Part C care.
My major criticism continues as I work through the book. All this work (over 200 chart-filled pages), all this time, and all this money and the government statisticians can neither combine information about the different Parts of Medicare nor "compare and contrast." In this case it would be nice to compare
- Medicare Fee for Service (FFS) Parts A and B (also known as "traditional Medicare" or "Medicare as we know it") with
- Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage).
This would be important because of the Democratic party's incessant attack on us Medicare Part C beneficiaries as stupid Republican dupes. Maybe the Feds don't want us to know how the two approaches compare? Such a comparison is THE burning question in the debate between ObamaCare and RyanCare. Will a system such as
- the Part C Medicare (Advantage) "choice" approach -- which is what Wyden/Ryan and by extension Romney proposes
- work better than
- the Democrat's traditional Medicare FFS "one size fits all" approach so admired by most of the Democratic Party and President Obama?
-- Dennis Byron
