Oh, well, yes, it’d also be absolutely anathema to those on the Right wing of the negotiating table, but all in all they’ll probably prefer not to publicly defend rejecting that in favor of cutting people off.

It struck me sometime back that the real push to start doing health insurance reform came — not when the Boomers hit Medicare (and would no longer have to worry about coverage!) — but when they hit middle age (50-something) and the cost of insurance to themselves personally, or to their employers, started getting really hefty!

Now with the Great Recession, and many of those 50-somethings losing jobs and/or jobs with health benefits, it would be good for them AND the system to let them buy into Medicare. Their “premium” could be that 8% (of whatever they may be earning) that is the threshold level for subsidies in the exchanges.

At middle-age, without insurance, one is likely to forego much of that preventive stuff, just when a lot of the chronic problems (like heart disease or diabetes) kick in and could be quite manageable, cost-effectively, at this earlier age. They’ll try to stick it out till Medicare, and be much sicker when they get there.

It’s always perplexed me that the government covers all the greatest at-risk populations — the elderly, the poor, and the military. But when trying to save costs, govt. decides to cut those expenses, rather than thinking like an insurance company, and going after younger, healthier people to join the Medicare risk pool.

Oh, but yeah. Can’t do that. That would mean a public option, or, heaven forbid, single payer.

But what is the *conditional* life expectancy (which is what you really care about for purposes of forming policy on retirement age)? That is, how many years of further life expectancy does each cohort (high income vs low income) enjoy *assuming* they actually reach age 65?

I would wager that this gradient between income brackets is much smaller, given the many other factors (infant mortality, homicide rates, etc.) that could explain lower *average* life expectancy for lower incomes.

The very dirty secret is that “living longer” often means confinement in a nursing home, staying in a bed with a half dozen other elderly in the same crowded room, and paying $70,000 plus a year – not covered by the very Medicare under discussion. After you pay the “home” all your savings, Medicaid kicks in and you are more or less a ward of the state and at the bottom of the healthcare barrel.

Only in America can they take away every dime (down to about two grand), steal any money you gave as gifts in the prior five years, and then proclaim we have “the finest healthcare system in the world.”

Raising the Medicare age would make nearly everyone suffer, except insurance companies, because they gain new customers, seniors at high rates.

Keep in mind, the huge excess our society pays for health care (some 30% based on my reading) is acting as a massive ‘stimulus’ to our economy and those trillions being sucked out would no doubt crash us into a deep depression. No different from the ‘stimulus’ that the military/industrial complex has on our economy.

This is misleading. The Federal government might save some (although this is not clear, given other possible increases). However, costs to seniors would rise, likely by more than the “savings” to the Feds (because Medicare is more efficient than the major alternatives).

In other words, healthcare costs would increase and seniors, rather than the government, would have to bear those costs. At some point, the vast majority of us will be seniors, so the vast majority of us will suffer as a result. Who benefits? Very high income taxpayers who hope to see lower rates, as healthcare costs are a very small percentage of their income.

By the way, on the oft heard notion of Medicare going broke – if so, then we all go broke, because we can’t afford healthcare, or we suffer from lack of needed care. Whether we fund Medicare is a question of who suffers.

As the used to say, cui bono is usually the best way to analyze these issues.

The conclusion? Raising the Medicare age, or otherwise decreasing benefits, hurts almost all, but benefits those with the highest incomes.