REFORM: Fixing Medicare Could Help Us All

We all know Medicare has problems. What you may not know is that we really do know a fair amount about how to fix it—and part of the solution has to do with changing the kind of medicine we use to take care of our over-65 population. Inside E Street, an AARP television production, (click here to watch—and you don't have to be 50 to learn something from it) invited several experts including New America's health policy program director Len Nichols to brainstorm.

Among the suggestions: use technology not only to keep better medical records that help doctors coordinate care across several specialists, but also to take better care of people at home. We have the means—and we'll develop more in coming years—to monitor people at home, and know when and how to intervene before a crisis develops in a patient with conditions like diabetes or congestive heart failure.

Len reminds us that Medicare can be a catalyst because the program has so much influence over the whole health sector. So fixing Medicare is good for all of us—not just because of the economic implications but because by getting care right for the elderly we can probably improve health for us all.