As Congress prepares to debate major health reform legislation, one proposal for
expanding coverage that has received support from key legislators is a Medicare
buy-in for people ages 55 to 64. This Kaiser Family Foundation policy brief
explains how such a buy-in could be structured.
The brief finds that
about one in four of uninsured people in this age range are in poor or fair
health, and most have low incomes. It examines the barriers to securing
affordable coverage in the current marketplace for uninsured people ages 55 to
65, as well as the potential for a Medicare buy-in to improve the group’s health
insurance coverage rate.
The brief concludes that a Medicare buy-in could
be relatively easy to put in place in the short-term, providing immediate help
to retirees who have great difficulty purchasing coverage in the current
insurance environment. However, without fairly generous subsidies, many of the
uninsured — particularly those with modest incomes — would be unlikely to
afford the premiums. With subsidies, a Medicare buy-in would help to reduce the
number of uninsured older adults; the generosity of these subsidies would drive
participation and government spending.
Issue Brief (.pdf)
