Cleveland, Mayo Clinic CEOs: Obamacare Doesn't End Medicare Crisis

The unanswered question in the Affordable Care Act is cost, Cleveland Clinic President and CEO Toby Cosgrove said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"We really don't have the answer to that," Cosgrove said. "We do know, however, that we're going to be paid less for what we do. Everybody's going to get paid less."

The implementation of the law in October already has increased access to insurance for millions of Americans. Cosgrove said the law eventually could improve the quality of care by creating a healthcare system that crosses state and regional borders, requiring providers to operate more efficiently.

"The healthcare system in the United States is not really a system," he said. "It's a whole bunch of cottage industries, and we're coming together as a system to drive more and more efficiency across our organizations."

The place that Obamacare falls short is on the issue of Medicare, Cosgrove said.

"We need to have incentives for individuals to take care of themselves, and that's not really as big part of the new law, as there should be," he said. "We have to reform the entire healthcare system, not just the ACA."
Mayo Clinic President and CEO John Noseworthy agreed.

"The nation has to have the courage to step up to the looming insolvency of Medicare," Noseworthy said, adding the industry needs to modernize the payment system and improve upon technology. "Modernizing Medicare and making it affordable for the country is going to take bipartisan input."