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This brief provides an overview of Medicare spending and financing, based on the most recent historical and projected data from the Medicare Trustees and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The brief highlights trends in Medicare spending and key drivers of spending growth, including higher enrollment, growth in health care costs, and increases in payments to Medicare Advantage plans.
This column was published as a Wall Street Journal Think Tank column on November 21, 2016. Early media coverage of the Republican health-care agenda has concentrated on plans to repeal and then replace the Affordable Care Act. The larger story is GOP preparations for a health policy trifecta: to fundamentally change the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare–all three of health care’s major programs–and in the process, fundamentally alter the direction of the federal role in health and core elements…
This month marks the start of the ACA's fifth open enrollment period and finds three in ten of the public saying they haven't heard anything at all about the current open enrollment period. Despite their overall views of the ACA, the majority of the public (61 percent) – including most Democrats (71 percent), independents (58 percent), and half of Republicans (52 percent) – say that because President Trump and Republicans in Congress are now in…
Some higher-income Medicare beneficiaries will have to pay more in Part B and Part D premiums starting in 2018, due to a provision in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, a recently passed law to change how Medicare pays physicians. A Kaiser Family Foundation analysis finds that, as a result of the provision, Part B premiums are expected to rise from $238 per month to $310 per month for Medicare beneficiaries with…
How Much " Skin in the Game " is Enough? The Financial Burden of Health Spending for People on Medicare Medicare extends health security and financial protection to seniors and younger people with disabilities. However, premiums, relatively high cost-sharing requirements, and gaps in the benefit package result in some beneficiaries spending a significant share of their income on health expenses. This data spotlight examines the burden out-of-pocket expenses placed on Medicare beneficiaries between 1997 and…
Several major deficit-reduction and entitlement reform proposals include raising Medicare's age of eligibility from 65 to 67 as a way of improving Medicare's solvency. This Kaiser Family Foundation report estimates the expected effects of such a change on the federal budget, as well as on affected seniors' out-of-pocket costs, employers, Medicaid and others in light of the major changes in coverage enacted under the 2010 health reform law. The study estimates that raising Medicare’s eligibility…
This Health Policy 101 chapter explores Medicare, a federal health insurance program covering more than 68 million people, established in 1965 for people age 65 or older and later expanded to cover people under age 65 with long-term disabilities. In addition to detailing Medicare eligibility, coverage, and spending, the chapter examines the increased role of private plans in providing benefits and the financing challenges posed by increasing health care costs and an aging population.
This data note presents new information to help set a context for understanding the implications of recent changes to Medicare's income-related premiums incorporated in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), a new law to repeal and replace Medicare's Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula for physician payments. It describes current requirements with respect to the income-related premiums under Medicare Part B and Part D, including the number and share of Medicare beneficiaries…
Since 2007, seniors with incomes greater than $85,000 have had to pay higher premiums for Medicare than their counterparts with lower incomes. Six percent of Medicare Part B enrollees are expected to pay higher monthly premiums in 2015, ranging from $147 to $336, depending on their income. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are considering whether to increase these income-related premiums to help offset the federal cost of repealing the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) payment formula, a…
As policymakers consider ways to slow the growth in Medicare spending as part of broader efforts to reduce the federal debt or offset the cost of other spending priorities, some have proposed to increase beneficiary contributions through higher Medicare premiums. This issue brief explains provisions of current law that impose income-related premiums under Medicare Part B and Part D, describes recent proposals to modify these requirements, and analyzes the potential implications for the Medicare population.
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