(1) Provide a dependable and superior health insurance coverage option for all,

(2) Thereby bring more healthy insured, paying fair, market rate premiums, into the Medicare System, which would strengthen the solvency of Medicare, and at the same time,

(3) By providing competition to the private insurers, control health insurance premium costs for those privately insured, and

(4) Help control the costs of medical care because providers would have to accept reasonable reimbursement rates and stop price-gouging and billing at excessive rates for needless services.

This should be coupled with incentives for preventive medicine and results-based payment models for providers, as well as laws to prevent cost-shifting by providers or insurance companies.

Basically, what you call “Obama Care” went a long way, but it did not go far enough to solve the problem of rising medical costs. Instead of, or in addition to, the individual insurance mandate, it should have included a Medicare For All option.

If the Super Committee cannot agree upon a plan or comes up short in savings, automatic cuts would be made to Medicare providers. In response to these cuts there is already a growing trend in hospital consolidation where private payers are charged more to make up for the public payers’ lower reimbursement levels. With the institution of ObamaCare, this cost shifting will continually become more pronounced, raising premiums for the privately insured.

In order for this not to occur, reforms in several areas of Medicare can be implemented that would save $9.4 trillion by 2035 when compared with Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baselines. The government should implement cost caps (approximately $5,500) on catastrophic illness. This would reduce the use of secondary policies and decrease overutilization of medical resources. Also, the government needs to implement an additional premium on beneficiaries to cover deficits within the Hospitalization Insurance Program – it cannot receive funds from general government revenues to finance its deficits, and will be insolvent by 2020, according to the CBO. Furthermore, beneficiaries’ contribution toward Part B of Medicare should be increased gradually from 25% to 35% to reduce the fund’s reliance on general tax revenues. The same policy should be implemented for Part D of Medicare. Finally, benefits for the wealthiest recipients should gradually be phased out.