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Opinion: Three ways to cut — and improve — Medicare

It's time to take the profit motive out of Medicare. That would save billions of dollars a year.
Source: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

The Republicans are right. We should cut Medicare. And I know how: Keep Medicare’s funding for actual health care but eliminate bureaucratic waste, profits, and the expensive and preposterous ban on negotiating drug prices. In other words, get rid of Part C and Part D and absorb the extra features into traditional Medicare.

Strong majorities of Americans across the political spectrum agree that Medicare needs to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. Prices here are roughly double what patients on prescription drugs. Clearly, negotiating drug prices would save a lot of money.

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