Now that people can obtain health insurance under Obamacare, the idea of raising the Medicare eligibility age above 65 has gained new life. What could be easier; save the government money by making seniors stay in their current coverage longer once they reach age 65. Increasing the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 saves $148 billion.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/medicare-cuts-84493.html#ixzz2DzMyznaa
That’s all well and good but keep in mind somebody is going to pay for those shifted health care costs that somebody is you.
Under current law if a worker stays on the job past 65 their employer coverage remains their primary coverage and they don’t use or pay for Medicare. The longer the post 65 period of employment, the higher costs for the employer and other workers who share those costs. Raise the Medicare eligibility age and even workers who retire after the normal retirement age will rely on employer retiree coverage (to the limited extent it still exits) rather than Medicare. Employers will have another reason to drop retiree coverage.
Increase the age at which Medicare is available and more people will be forced to delay retirement thereby further increasing employer and worker costs (because older people have higher health care expenses that are shared by the group in which they are enrolled).
Force older Americans to stay enrolled in one of the new state health exchanges longer and their costs are higher, the governments subsidy is higher and their fellow insured premiums are higher as a result of the higher claims associated with older people.
And what about those on disability Social Security, if we extend their eligibility date who pays their costs, if we don’t we have set up a giant incentive to claim disability and along with it early Medicare coverage.
Lower income Americans will add to the Medicaid roles the longer they wait for Medicare.
All this is not to say that if we want to deal with federal spending and deficits we don’t have to consider this type of change. However let’s be clear what we are doing and to whom.
What it all boils down to is a giant new “tax” on employers and the middle class.
Let’s think of about this; many policy makers reject adjustment of the Social Security COLA formula on the basis that after twenty years the resulting increase in the Social Security benefit on average will be $1,000 less on a cumulative basis than it would be under the current formula. At the same time many of these people consider shifting hundreds of dollars a month in premiums to Social Security beneficiaries.
Never forget, when the government reduces its spending, your spending goes up one way or the other. Your task is to figure out which shell hides the pea.
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