An op-ed column in Tuesday's NY Times from Ezekiel J. Emanuel and Jeffrey B. Liebman began, "Medicare is going to be cut. That is inevitable. There is no way to solve the nation's long-term debt problem without reducing the growth rate of federal health care spending. The only question is whether the cuts will be smart ones." According to the two former White House advisers, "Smart cuts eliminate spending on medical tests, treatments and procedures that don't work -- or that cost significantly more than other treatments while delivering no better health outcomes. And they can be made without shortchanging patients. There are plenty of examples..." They use the rest of their column discussing such examples. http://tinyurl.com/3uepbc4
