NOW COMES IN CRUEL AND STUPID. As a follow-up to the earlier post on Medicare's donut holes, an e-mail from Jon Cohn reminds me of the recent New England Journal of Medicine study that found Medicare plans with caps on drug benefits actually cost the system more money, as seniors would bow to financial pressures and cease taking their medicines, leading to emergencies that cost the system much more than covering the preventive medications would. As the NEJM concluded, "The savings in drug costs from the cap were offset by increases in the costs of hospitalization and emergency department care." So not only is the donut hole cruel policy, it's a verifiably stupid policy, and will cost far more money over the long haul than simply offering stable and expansive drug coverage. And none of this even gets into the absurd giveaways to Big Pharma and the insurance companies that make the program far more expensive than it need be.
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Ezra Klein
