Thursday, June 19, 2008

Heritage Foundation Says Bidding Delay will Cost Taxypayers $3 Billion

The Heritage Foundation posted a web memo titled Morning Bell: Encouraging Fraud and Waste Is No Way to Stop Rising Health Care Costs on Wednesday, June 18. The article includes statics like “the average citizen can buy a power wheelchair for $2,174, Medicare pays $4,023” and states that “the proposed [competitive bidding] delay would cost taxpayers $3 billion in wasteful spending.”

The article also claims that delaying the competitive bidding program will "make sure medical equipment suppliers can inflate health care costs legally through government price controls."

A rebuttal post by John Shirvinsky, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Association for Medical Equipment Services, states, “It is a sad day for free market economics when the Heritage Foundation spouts bureaucratic talking points and ignores market-based realities as you have done today in making hysterical claims of “fraud and abuse” in the Medicare durable medical equipment and supplies program and take up the cause of a market-distorting bidding program that has been proven to be anti-competitive, anti-free market, anti-small business and poorly designed and executed to boot.”

To read the Heritage Foundation article and post a comment visit: http://blog.heritage.org/2008/06/19/morning-bell-encouraging-fraud-and-waste-are-no-way-to-stop-rising-health-care-costs/

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