Expenditures Rise to meet Income (Parkensen)

Medical care is like that. If the funds are there, they will be spent. Make more funds available, and they get spent too. You can always do another CAT scan (just to be sure), do more blood work (something might develop), make another office appointment (see how the patient is doing), prescribe another medicine (just in case). Then you can add more costly safety requirements. Such as requiring the air conditioning in hospitals hold the temperature to plus or minus one degree, no matter what the temperature is outside. Or requiring that even doctor's offices have backup electrical generators.
Medicare has no limit on payouts. Medics submit bills and Medicare pays them. With a deep pocket paying, a lot of medical stuff gets done, and billed, and paid for.
Congressman Paul Ryan has proposed a way to cut medicare costs. Seniors would be given money or vouchers to purchase health insurance. Where do the savings come from? Healthy seniors would tend to purchase "hospitalization only" plans and pay routine costs out of pocket. "Hospitalization only" plans are only $3000 a year, where as the "cover everything" plans are $14,000 a year (last year's prices, tomorrow's will be higher). Patients tend to refuse costly treatments when they have to pay for them. That's where the savings come from.
Medics hate this. They have to put on their best bedside manner and convince needy patients to dig into their own pockets to pay for pills or scans or blood work. Medics like to prescribe and not have the patient worrying about the expense. Improves the doctor-patient relationship no end.
So, is the Ryan plan a good deal for seniors and the country as a whole?
Depends. Ryan's plan puts a hard cap on the government's liabilities. Uncle chips in so much and no more. Patient pays the rest. This is good for the country as a whole. This country spends twice as much on health care as any other country in the world and we don't get anything for it. We would be better off directing that money into economic development, research and development, infrastructure, education, or other worthy causes.
Would it be a good deal for seniors? Depends upon how costly insurance gets, and how much Uncle chips in. This is unclear. Ryan's plan suggests/hints/handwaves that Uncle will chip in $10000 which is about what today's Medicare costs the government. Future contributions would rise at the rate of inflation. Would that be enough? Who knows?
Also, can the senior keep the savings that come from electing a "hospitalization only" insurance plan?
At a guess, it will work out OK for seniors whose health is fair-to-good, and visit hardship on those with poor health and no money.