OPINION

Real Solutions Needed for Medicare

Writes Steven Rattner.

We need to find intelligent ways to broach the unmentionable subjects when it comes to Medicare, writes Steven Rattner, former counselor to the secretary of the Treasury, in The New York Times. While hyperventilating politicians have done much to cloud the issue, it’s time to take serious measures, Rattner says. With both presidential tickets offering plans for the program, Rattner says that “the big money in Medicare is not to be found in Mr. Ryan’s competition or Mr. Obama’s innovation, but in reducing the cost of treating people in the last year of life, which consumes more than a quarter of the program’s budget.”