No. of Recommendations: 3
Congress is reluctant to impose heavy economic costs on a discrete group of people in order to finance diffuse and smaller benefits to a very large group of people. Mostly because economically hurting people leads them to call their Congressbeings and complain. No one calls their Congresscritter to complain that a diffuse future benefit that they didn't know about didn't end up materializing. It's a pretty easy choice for an elected official, which is why the status quo is so durable (in lots of scenarios).
Well, sure, but another factor to consider is that price ceilings rarely work and instead lead to shortages of whatever good you're placing a cap on.
If the feds were to ever cap Medicare fees to high degrees you'll simply see more doctors and service providers...drop out of the program as they won't earn enough to cover *their* costs. As a result access to care for the people who need it most will get worse.
We don't have a free market in healthcare. If we did, profit motives and more agile practices would be brought to bear to wring inefficiencies out of the system much faster.
