Medicare: How Timely Reforms Can Prevent Painful Consequences | The Heritage Foundation

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

64% : For example, on the 50th anniversary of the program, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 77 percent of Americans stated that Medicare is a very important program, second only to Social Security (with 83 percent).
58% : Champions of "single payer" health care often claim that replacing private health insurance and its premium costs with a government monopoly will save money for enrollees and taxpayers alike.
58% : In 2003, during the second Bush Administration, Congress created the large and growing system of private Medicare Advantage plans in addition to adding prescription drug coverage delivered almost exclusively through private insurance plans.
58% : This change would transform the complex Medicare entitlement program into an integrated health insurance plan, similar to the kind of coverage used by most people enrolled in private commercial insurance.
55% : Indeed, Senator Bernie Sanders' bill (S. 1804), which attracted strong support among prominent Senate Democrats, would rely on a variety of specialized tax increases, plus a set of employer-based taxes and income taxes, amounting to a new tax of 11.5 percent of payroll.
54% : In fact -- assuming no other policy or legislative interventions -- spending on Medicare, Medicaid, the other major health programs, Social Security, and net interest payments are projected to reach almost 20 percent of the nation's economy by 2039 and, by themselves, will exceed total federal revenues.
53% : In 2010, during the Obama Administration, Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act, which included an estimated 165 provisions of law affecting the Medicare program, including the imposition of an unprecedented hard cap on the annual growth of Medicare spending and the authorization of various payment and delivery reforms.
52% : Congress could implement such a change over 10 years and raise the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to at least the age of normal retirement for Social Security -- 67.
51% : REF Manhattan Institute analyst Brian Reidl observes, "Since 2008 -- when the first Baby Boomers qualified for early retirement -- Social Security and Medicare have accounted for 72 percent of all inflation-adjusted federal spending growth (with other health entitlements responsible for the rest)."REF Over the next 10 years, according to the Government Accountability Office, Medicare, Social Security, and net interest on the debt will consume about two-thirds of the projected $3 trillion increase in total federal spending.
51% : These federal entitlements are the biggest drivers of federal spending, future deficits, and debt.
50% : As analysts at the Urban Institute have proven conclusively, Medicare beneficiaries in virtually every income category receive far more in benefits than they ever paid in taxes during their working lives.
48% : The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) details Medicare's relentless fiscal pressures: Medicare's gross outlays will grow from $707 billion to over $1.5 trillion from 2018 to 2028.REF It is the biggest driver of federal health care spending, dwarfing Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act subsidies, and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.