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Senior Citizen Politics
Many Questions Remain on Expanding Medicare to
Buy-In for Younger Americans
Expanded Medicare program could help cover the 4.3
million uninsured Americans in the 55 to 64 age group
 Dec.
10, 2009 - The proposal to expand Medicare to include people aged 55 and
older as part of an alternative to creating the public option may
have expanded support for the Senate version of the overhaul bill, the
Los Angeles Times reports.
"Despite the enthusiasm, the proposal must clear at
least one big hurdle: cost. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office
has not yet analyzed the idea, and its conclusions could be a major
factor -- positive or negative -- in determining whether the compromise
opens the way for final Senate action on healthcare," according to the
Los Angeles Times.
The expansion proposal came Tuesday as part of a
tentative agreement between liberals and moderates to back away from the
public insurance option promoted by progressives (Levey and Jaspen,
12/10).
The expanded Medicare program could help cover the
4.3 million uninsured Americans in the 55 to 64 age group who are among
the most expensive patients to insure, the
Philadelphia Inquirer reports. That could be especially helpful to
"people forced into early retirement by the economy and thereby forced
out of their medical coverage."
Details of the plan aren't available yet, and its
unclear exactly which people in the age group would be eligible. The new
Medicare recipients would have to buy into the program, unlike people
over 65, but subsidies may be available (Bergen and Burling, 12/10).
The Wall Street Journal: Under the plan "congressional aides
estimate that two million to three million people would participate."
The approach "could be good news for some in the 55-64 bracket who
currently don't have an easy way to get coverage. Those who must buy
coverage on their own often face high premiums or are shut out entirely
because of pre-existing conditions."
But their payments would also likley be more
than those paid by people older than 65, who pay $100 a month or more
for coverage, depending on their income. "Based on data from the
Congressional Budget Office, a report by the seniors' lobby AARP
estimated that an earlier proposal to expand Medicare to a narrower
group would cost participants $634 a month. ...
Another issue is whether participants will have
access to the same doctors as they do on private insurance. Some doctors
have stopped taking Medicare patients because of the lower payment
rates" (Adamy, 12/10).
NPR reports that a previous CBO estimate -- done last
year-- concluded that allowing people age 62-64 to buy into Medicare
would cost $7,600 a year including drug coverage, more than the $4,722
for the average cost for purchasing coverage in the non-group market.
And a 2002 estimate found that without subsidies "a
Medicare buy-in would only cut a single percentage point from the
proportion of uninsured adults ages 55 to 64, leaving 9 percent rather
than 10 percent without coverage." But some think that allowing the
non-disabled to buy in to Medicare could be less disruptive to the
insurance market — and would cost less than a public option (Hensley,
12/9).
This is part of
Kaiser Health News' Daily Report - a summary of health policy coverage
from more than 300 news organizations. The full summary of the day's
news can be found
here and you can sign up for e-mail subscriptions to the Daily
Report
here. In addition, our staff of reporters and correspondents file
original stories each day, which you can find on our
home page.
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This
information was reprinted from
kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J.
Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser
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