the failure of Medicaid’s pilot programs

The failure of Medicare’s demonstration projects to reduce the costs of care has been the subject of much disappointment in the health policy world. Recall that these are critical to President Obama’s challenge “To find out what works and then go do it.” If nothing works, the fallback weapon in Obamacare is to reduce fees paid to doctors and hospitals. Yet the Medicare actuaries tell us squeezing the providers in this way will put one…