Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation
For Immediate Release
Monday, June 27, 2011
202-285-0244
www.freedomandprosperity.org
New CF&P Video Says Medicaid Should Be Reformed With a Block Grant System
(Washington, D.C., Monday , June 27, 2011) A new video released today by the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation (CF&P) explains that transforming Medicaid into a system of block grants will protect taxpayers and promote better healthcare policy. Narrated by Dan Mitchell, a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, the video is entitled, “Promote Federalism and Replicate the Success of Welfare Reform with Medicaid Block Grants.”
The long-run Medicaid numbers are daunting. But, as was shown from the successful welfare reform initiative, if states are given the flexibility to determine the best methods for providing care for the indigent, it is possible to control spiraling costs.
Links to the video: YouTube | Dailymotion | Blip.TV
Under its current structure, the Medicaid matching system provides incentives for waste and needless expansion. In addition, by allowing consumers to shop primarily with other people’s money – a dysfunctional arrangement known as the third-party payer problem – the current Medicaid system contributes to the distortions of the healthcare system that lead to higher prices and inefficiency.
“Medicaid is broken and needs to be fixed,” noted CF&P Foundation President Andrew Quinlan, “House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s Medicaid Reform proposal is based on the very successful block grant model used to fix Welfare in the 1990’s.”
Dan Mitchell, the video’s narrator, observed that “The federal government has a terrible track record with regards to healthcare, imposing monopolistic programs that saddle taxpayers with unsustainable costs. Devolving the programs to the states is the only option that is good for taxpayers and good for healthcare consumers,” he concluded.
Executive Summary
The Medicaid program imposes high costs while generating poor results. This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video explains how block grants, such as the one proposed by Congressman Paul Ryan, will save money and improve healthcare by giving states the freedom to innovate and compete.
CF&P Foundation has also released more than three-dozen mini-documentaries since 2007. These videos include Tax Competition Primer, VAT-Hidden Tax, Global Flat Tax Revolution, Cutting the U.S. Corporate Income Tax, Promoting Prosperity, Obama’s So-Called Stimulus, Obama’s Deferral Proposal, Case Against Class-Warfare Tax Policy, President Obama’s Dishonest Demagoguery on Tax Havens, Six Reasons Why the Capital Gains Tax Should Be Abolished, The Rahn Curve and the Growth-Maximizing Level of Government, a three part series on the Benefits of Tax Havens and a another three-part series on the Laffer Curve.
Link: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/videos/videos.shtml
Web Links:
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER3YVoKErzM
Dailymotion
http://dai.ly/mHChQb
Blip.TV
http://blip.tv/economics/promote-federalism-and-replicate-the-success-of-welfare-reform-with-medicaid-block-grants-5317370
For additional comments:
Andrew Quinlan can be reached at 202-285-0244, andy@freedomandprosperity.org
Dan Mitchell can be reached at 202-218-4615, dmitchell@cato.org
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