Kicking the Can Down the Road: Medicare Age Eligibility

More research is emerging on the validity of raising the age for Medicare eligibility to help reduce the national deficit. While changing age eligibility from 65 to 67 could cut federal spending at the line item, this is a transference move rather than making effort to decrease overall health spending. Raising the age to 67 would impact 7 million people. According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 42 percent would seek coverage through employer-sponsored plans, 38 percent would turn to the Exchange and 20 percent would become covered under Medicaid. Even if you disregard the spend increase for individuals and employers, this still creates a new federal cost with expanded coverage under Medicaid.

As more people "age in" to eligibility and live longer, a strategy to decrease the number of beneficiaries fails to address any root cause. Transferring risk rather than evaluating and generating ways to impact the system as a whole is a solution destined to fail at creating sustainable change.