Cut Medicare, Help Patients

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. 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; here are three.