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In this Wall Street Journal Think Tank column Drew Altman discusses how Republicans will assume ownership of health care’s policy and political problems as they assume control, and how that may affect their plans for the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid and Medicare.
The 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) included many provisions affecting the Medicare program and the 57 million seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicare for their health insurance coverage. This brief explains the Medicare provisions in the ACA and explores the implications for Medicare and beneficiaries of repealing these provisions.
As Republican policymakers consider how to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), they are likely to face a number of decisions about whether to retain any of the law’s changes to Medicare. Repealing the ACA has potential implications for Medicare spending, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation brief.
With its inclusion in the House GOP health plan released last month, the idea of converting Medicare into a premium support system once again features prominently in Capitol Hill policy discussions about the future of Medicare, the federal health insurance program that covers 57 million seniors and people with disabilities.
Changes in Medicare’s private contracting laws could have significant implications for beneficiaries, doctors, and the Medicare program. This brief summarizes the three options that physicians and practitioners currently have for charging Medicare patients, explains how private contracting works in Medicare under current law, and reviews current proposals on changes to private contracting in Medicare, as well as their implications for patients, physicians, and the Medicare program.
Medicare, the nation’s federal health insurance program for 57 million people age 65 and over and younger people with disabilities, often plays a major role in federal health policy and budget discussions. Medicare is likely to be back on the federal policy agenda as Congress debates repealing and replacing the ACA, and also if policymakers turn their attention to reducing entitlement spending as part of efforts to reduce the growing federal budget deficit and debt. This issue brief presents 10 facts and figures about Medicare’s financial status today and the outlook for the future.
Medicare is likely to be back on the federal policy agenda this year as Congress and President Trump pursue repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, and potentially consider options to reduce federal spending.
This interactive tool describes the income, savings and home equity of people on Medicare in 2013, and in 2030. It allows users to break out the data by age, gender, race/ethnicity, marital status and education level, providing insight into the disparities within and across categories of beneficiaries.
A small share of the 52.4 million elderly individuals and people with disabilities on Medicare have relatively high incomes, but most are of modest means -- with half living on incomes of less than $23,500 last year.
In an effort to simplify Medicare’s cost-sharing requirements, provide beneficiaries with catastrophic protection, and achieve program savings, some have proposed to restructure Medicare’s benefit design. Several recent proposals would create a unified deductible for Medicare Parts A and B, simplify cost-sharing requirements above the deductible, and add an annual limit on beneficiary out-of-pocket spending—a benefit feature typical of larger employer plans, but lacking in traditional Medicare. This issue brief describes the options for adding an out-of-pocket spending limit to Medicare and examines the operational issues that could arise in implementing both a uniform and an income-based out-of-pocket spending limit. Because the implementation of an income-related out-of-pocket maximum would pose somewhat greater complexity for Medicare, the operational issues associated with this approach are discussed in greater detail.
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