{"id":1497572,"date":"2022-05-31T07:16:59","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T11:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1497572"},"modified":"2022-05-31T07:17:06","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T11:17:06","slug":"cbo-report-emphasizes-putting-more-people-on-medicare-would-worsen-its-bankruptcy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/cbo-report-emphasizes-putting-more-people-on-medicare-would-worsen-its-bankruptcy\/","title":{"rendered":"CBO Report Emphasizes Putting More People On Medicare Would Worsen Its Bankruptcy"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcbo-report-emphasizes-putting-more-people-on-medicare-would-worsen-its-bankruptcy%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1497572&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/46864263564_e4e2ffe6fb_k.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>It never rains that it doesn\u2019t pour. Mere days after socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, convened a <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/05\/16\/senate-hearing-highlights-how-single-payer-will-ration-health-care\/\">hearing on his proposal<\/a> for a single-payer system of socialized medicine, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/system\/files\/2022-05\/57918-Age-Medicare.pdf\">report<\/a> analyzing one of the left\u2019s supposedly \u201cmoderate\u201d proposals to expand government-run health care: Lowering the age of Medicare eligibility to 60.<\/p>\n<p>These types of \u201cincremental\u201d reforms attempt to achieve a move to single payer via the installment plan, gradually expanding government-run care\u2014and choking out private health insurance\u2014until only the government \u201coption\u201d remains. But the CBO report illustrated several ways in which this proposal would inflict further harm on American health care.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Would Accelerate Medicare\u2019s Insolvency<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>For starters, the plan CBO analyzed would formalize Medicare\u2019s insolvency virtually overnight. As I have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/2016\/05\/medicare-insolvency-entitlement-crisis-2016-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-bernie-sanders\/\">previously noted<\/a>, Medicare is already functionally insolvent.<\/p>\n<p>The year before Obamacare\u2019s enactment, the program\u2019s trustees <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cms.gov\/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems\/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports\/ReportsTrustFunds\/Downloads\/TR2009.pdf\">estimated<\/a> the Medicare Part A Trust Fund would reach insolvency in 2017\u2014five years ago. Only the financial gimmickry of Obamacare, which claimed that the federal government could use the same <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/wonk\/wp\/2012\/08\/14\/romneys-right-obamacare-cuts-medicare-by-716-billion-heres-how\/\">Medicare savings<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ukaIZ7pmabo\">both<\/a> to fund Obamacare and to extend Medicare\u2019s solvency, has kept the program afloat\u2014but only on paper.<\/p>\n<p>The CBO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/system\/files\/2022-05\/57918-Age-Medicare.pdf\">report<\/a> said that the budget office \u201chas not analyzed how the policy would affect the financial operations of the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund.\u201d But it doesn\u2019t take a rocket scientist to quantify the effects.<\/p>\n<p>CBO estimated that \u201coutlays for Part A would increase by $146 billion\u201d from 2026, the date the budget office assumed the policy would take effect, through 2031. With Part A spending rising by roughly $20-30 billion per year, and virtually no new payroll tax revenue coming in, the Trust Fund\u2014which had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cms.gov\/files\/document\/2021-medicare-trustees-report.pdf\">only $134.1 billion on hand<\/a> as of December 2020\u2014would become insolvent within months instead of years.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Inefficient Spending<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The bottom-line numbers for the expansion of Medicare look none too appealing, either. CBO estimated that lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60 would increase federal deficits by $155 billion over six years (2026-2031), while reducing the number of uninsured Americans by a mere 400,000\u2014not nearly enough to warrant such an increase in spending, let alone more turmoil within the health care system.<\/p>\n<p>Lowering the Medicare eligibility age would also create other logistical issues, making implementation more difficult. For starters, lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60 means that for the first time, people who do not qualify for Social Security (either disability or retirement benefits) could enter the program. Without Social Security automatically enrolling people in Medicare, they would have to seek out the program, and the federal government would have to use another way to receive premium payments other than by deducting them from Social Security checks.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, lowering the eligibility age increases the possibility of split coverage within a household. If a parent qualifies for Medicare, but a spouse or children do not, families could end up getting insurance coverage from two separate sources.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Higher Premiums<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Another, somewhat surprising, logistical obstacle comes from the effect that lowering the Medicare eligibility age will have on insurance premiums. Progressives have often claimed that shifting people in the age 60-64 would create a \u201cwin-win\u201d premium scenario: Adding people who have lower health costs than \u201colder\u201d seniors will reduce average costs in Medicare, while removing them from the exchanges will lower average premiums for the non-Medicare insurance market.<\/p>\n<p>In its analysis, the budget office contradicts the second prong of this theory:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>CBO and [the Joint Committee on Taxation]\u2019s analysis suggests that even though older enrollees spend more, on average, on health care, their premium payments (including individual premium contributions and any applicable PTCs [premium tax credits, i.e., federal insurance subsidies]) would exceed insurers\u2019 claims and administrative spending under current law. Since those older enrollees would leave the nongroup market under the policy, premiums would increase.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>To put it another way: CBO believes that the \u201cpre-retirees\u201d buying exchange coverage before they become eligible for Medicare are relatively healthy. On average, these individuals\u2019 health costs do not exceed their premObamaciums\u2014in fact, they are subsidizing other, less healthy individuals, such that removing these healthy 60-64-year-olds would raise average premium levels.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0This fact demonstrates the extent to which the exchanges have in many states become <em>de facto<\/em> high-risk pools, where only the sickest individuals, or the individuals who qualify for the biggest subsidies, bother to sign up for coverage.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Unworkable Proposal<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Some on the left might claim that the hypothetical scenario CBO analyzed doesn\u2019t properly replicate what an expanded Medicare program might look like. CBO assumed that existing federal Medicare subsidies for the over-65 population would get extended to the 60-64 population, for instance, rather than examining a program in which those aged 60-64 could buy into Medicare with their own money.<\/p>\n<p>But that type of \u201cMedicare buy-in\u201d would face similar, if not greater, logistical obstacles. For instance, would policy-makers separate the existing Medicare program from the \u201cbuy-in\u201d for the under-65 population\u2014and how would that get accomplished in an actuarially fair manner? Could the 60-64 population use Obamacare exchange subsidies for the Medicare \u201cbuy-in\u201d program, and if so, how would those subsidies get calculated and applied?<\/p>\n<p>Engaging in these types of cumbersome logistical exercises for a program that would do practically nothing to increase the number of Americans with health coverage\u2014and at a time Medicare already faces insolvency\u2014represents more than just tilting at progressive windmills. It also demonstrates the extent of the left\u2019s obsession with taking control of the health care system.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/chrisjacobshc\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>. Previously he was a senior health policy analyst for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a senior policy analyst in The Heritage Foundation\u2019s Center for Health Policy Studies, and a senior policy analyst with the Joint Economic Committee\u2019s Senate Republican staff. During the debate over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, Jacobs was a policy adviser for the House Republican Conference under then-Chairman Mike Pence. In the first two years of the law\u2019s implementation, he was a health policy analyst for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Jacobs got his start on Capitol Hill as an intern for then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). He holds a bachelor\u2019s degree in political science and history from American University, where he is a part-time teacher of health policy. He currently resides in Washington, D.C.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It never rains that it doesn\u2019t pour. Mere days after socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, convened a hearing on his proposal for a single-payer system of socialized medicine, the Congressional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}