By opening Medicare to everyone, we could secure universal coverage and run a more efficient and just system. Medicare is far from perfect, but the flexible program stands strong. By expanding it, we can better pay for quality care and bargain with hospitals, drug companies and device firms on behalf of everyday people.
Full Answer
Is it time to expand Medicare Advantage to Medicaid and employers?
It’s time for a better idea that addresses both cost and quality. That better idea is expanding the successful Medicare Advantage program to both Medicaid and employer-covered populations. This Medicare program has a proven track record in preserving quality and generating customer satisfaction.
Is Medicaid expansion good for the economy?
The states that have refused to expand Medicaid are denying their residents basic healthcare and are harming their state economies in the process. Medicaid expansion opponents argue expansion would cripple state budgets and create further dependence on governmental programs. This post argues otherwise. Medicaid expansion is good economics.
How do employers pay for Medicare Advantage health insurance?
(Even the companies that do a good job of managing health care spending still pay upward of 25% of their payrolls for health insurance.) The employer could offer different Medicare Advantage plans through either public or private exchanges. The employer would pay into a pool administered specifically for Medicare Advantage.
Should all Americans be covered by Medicare?
This Medicare program has a proven track record in preserving quality and generating customer satisfaction. If all Americans were covered by the program, selection bias — insurers seeking to cover healthier, more profitable people and shun the sicker and more expensive — would be eliminated (since everyone is in the same risk pool).
Why is Medicare expansion good?
Numerous studies have already documented how Medicaid expansion bolsters access to health care, increases affordability, and improves health for low-income populations, as well as reduces racial and ethnic disparities, strengthens rural health care providers, and helps state economies.
Why is it necessary to reform Medicare?
Why reform Medicare? The main reason for reforming Medicare is not that the program is the principal driver of future federal spending increases, although it is. The main reason is not that Medicare beneficiaries could be receiving much better coordinated and more effective care, although they could.
What does Medicare expansion do?
Medicare expansion refers to broadening the benefits of the program, as the parts in which beneficiaries enroll through the government provide limited coverage. Throughout the years, extensions of the program have been uncommon, with one of the most notable instances being coverage of disabled individuals under 65.
What is Medicare and why is it important?
Medicare provides health insurance coverage to individuals who are age 65 and over, under age 65 with certain disabilities, and individuals of all ages with ESRD. Medicaid provides medical benefits to groups of low-income people, some who may have no medical insurance or inadequate medical insurance.
How should Medicare be reformed?
Congress should reform Medicare graduate medical education payments by converting the payments into direct grants to institutions sponsoring residency training programs; allowing ambulatory care settings such as physician groups to receive funding for sponsoring residencies; and cutting the total amount of spending by ...
How can Medicare be sustainable?
For the short-term, the Task Force proposed these measures:Gradually raise Medicare Part B premiums from 25 to 35 percent of total program costs (over five years);Use Medicare's buying power to increase rebates from pharmaceutical companies;Modernize Medicare's benefits package, including the copayment structure; and.More items...•
What is Biden's plan for Medicare expansion?
The Medicare expansion in President Joe Biden's $1.75 trillion spending plan included fewer new benefits than some Democrats had hoped for. Medicare benefits would be expanded to include hearing coverage under a framework for a $1.75 trillion spending plan released by President Joe Biden on Thursday.
Will the age for Medicare be lowered?
Lowering the eligibility age is no longer part of the U.S. Government's budget for Fiscal Year 2022. So, the Medicare eligibility age will not see a reduction anytime in the next year.
Is Obamacare a Medicare?
Main Differences Between Medicare and the ACA (Obamacare) In the simplest terms, the main difference between understanding Medicare and Obamacare is that Obamacare refers to private health plans available through the Health Insurance Marketplace while Original Medicare is provided through the federal government.
What type of benefit is Medicare?
Medicare is the federal health insurance program for: People who are 65 or older. Certain younger people with disabilities. People with End-Stage Renal Disease (permanent kidney failure requiring dialysis or a transplant, sometimes called ESRD)
What would happen without Medicare?
Payroll taxes would fall 10 percent, wages would go up 11 percent and output per capita would jump 14.5 percent. Capital per capita would soar nearly 38 percent as consumers accumulated more assets, an almost ninefold increase compared to eliminating Medicare alone.
How has Medicare impacted the healthcare system?
Medicare and Medicaid have greatly reduced the number of uninsured Americans and have become the standard bearers for quality and innovation in American health care. Fifty years later, no other program has changed the lives of Americans more than Medicare and Medicaid.
What is the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care as a right to its people
As Sanders said, “The United States is the only major nation in the industrialized world that does not guarantee health care as a right to its people.”. What America is doing on health care isn’t working for either men or women.
Is Medicare for all effective?
Expanding Medicare for all is the fairest, most effective and straightforward way to ensure universal coverage in America. With Medicare, seniors have greater access to care. Yet most people deal with an overly complex system that fails to provide the same benefits our seniors receive.
Does Obamacare offer protections?
Lawmaker's heated Obamacare accusation. To be sure, Obamacare does offer greater protections and support for working women to obtain basic insurance. But with the fluctuating and often excessive premiums, deductibles and co-pays, these bills remain onerous. Accesses to in-network physicians remain restricted.
How much of Medicare is covered by Medicare Advantage?
One idea is to look to a program that has been working: the Medicare Advantage program. It has grown rapidly and now covers more than 30% of all Medicare beneficiaries. It also has one of the highest customer satisfaction rates of any health insurance plan.
Why would healthcare costs be better managed?
And health care costs would be better managed because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) would accelerate value-based payments to providers and cost shifting from Medicare-covered populations to populations covered by employer-sponsored commercial insurance plans would be eliminated.
What is the consequence of the bigger delivery systems?
The consequence is the bigger delivery systems have more leverage in negotiating prices in the commercial marketplace. Evidence suggests that the resulting high prices are a major contributor to increases in the overall cost of U.S. health care.
Why is health care out of control?
The Medicare and Medicaid programs underfund the cost of care in most of America. A few states, because of quirks in the Medicare law of 1965, fare better than others.
What is Medicare contract?
Medicare contracts with these entities to deliver coordinated care for the Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, which has led to the mergers of many delivery systems.
Do commercial insurers pay for mistakes?
But the financial incentives actually reward the errors. Commercial insurers continue to pay for mistakes and poor care by paying providers based on utilization of procedures and hospital admissions, no matter what the reason for service is. This is called fee for service, and it’s literally killing us.
Will the federal insurance exchanges rein in costs?
The federal and state insurance exchanges have failed to rein in costs. Now, with the rollback of the mandate that individuals must purchase health insurance, the number of uninsured in the country will climb. Meanwhile, continued federal funding of the subsidy for insurance for the poor is uncertain.
Why is expansion important for health care?
Expansion allows for states to try innovative solutions to address health quality, cost, and coverage.
What will Medicaid expansion do?
Medicaid expansion will promote economic security, specifically for working families. Prior to the ACA, if an uninsured family member became sick, the lack of coverage would often bankrupt and de-stabilize the family. In fact, the most bankruptcies in America were due to illness. [3] .
How many states have opted in to Medicaid?
Currently, 28 states and the District of Columbia have opted-in. The states that have refused to expand Medicaid are denying their residents basic healthcare and are harming their state economies in the process.
Is Medicaid expansion good for the states?
From Chambers of Commerce to hospital organizations, broad coalitions of organizations have realized that Medicaid expansion is not only good for individuals and working families, but it is good for the states.
Is Medicaid expansion a positive thing?
Regardless of one’s opinion on other components of the ACA, the economic and social arguments for Medicaid expansion are overwhelmingly positive. In 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that coercing states to expand Medicaid under the ACA was illegal.
Why is Medicaid expansion important?
Medicaid expansion supports the economy. Medicaid addresses the uncompensated care problem. Politically powerful interest groups (health care providers among them) support expansion. It would reduce cost shifting. Expansion supports the broader reform , helping to legitimize it and make it function better.
Why should we not expand Medicaid?
Reasons why states should not expand Medicaid. The uninsured already have access to necessary health care, even for free. Medicaid harms health. Expansion is expensive for states. Moreover, populations currently eligible for but not enrolled in Medicaid will come out of the woodwork.
Is Medicaid good for health?
Medicaid is good for health (more here ). Medicaid offers financial protection. Expansion costs states very little; most of the cost is covered by the federal government. More broadly, health reform saves many states money. Medicaid expansion supports the economy.
Do Republican electoral constituencies benefit from Medicaid expansion?
Republican electoral constituencies do not, on average, benefit from expansion. Medicaid should be block granted; states should be afforded greater flexibility. Resisting expansion undermines reform, which is good for Republicans in November. Medicaid reduces the incentive to work.
Is expansion good for Democrats?
Expansion supports the broader reform, helping to legitimize it and make it function better. It’s good for Democrats in November. Providing access to affordable coverage, as well as people taking up that coverage, is our moral duty. The uninsured already have access to necessary health care, even for free.
Does Medicaid expansion affect private coverage?
Medicaid reduces the incentive to work. Medicaid expansion crowds out private coverage. The expansion comes with cost-increasing coverage mandates. Medicaid expansion will exacerbate the effects of a shortage of primary care physicians.
