In his latest Kaiser Health News column, Austin Frakt writes: "Since the inception of Medicare, policymakers have wrestled with the problem of how the program can best pay for beneficiaries' medical services. The result of this decades-long struggle has been increasing costs and a Byzantine set of payment methods. However, today's Medicare includes the elements of a more efficient payment system. Ironically, that efficient system would be based on one of the program's most complex and controversial features: its public-private duality" (9/9). Read the column.