Friday, December 14, 2012

Avik on Medicare Age Eligibility

Earlier this week, we posted our take on a recent HealthBeat blog post decrying the idea of raising the Medicare eligibility age. Forbes blogger (and FoIB) Avik Roy also weighed in, with a thoughtful and provocative post at The Apothecary. His thesis is that raising the Medicare eligibility age would be a major step in the right direction:

"[I]n fact, raising the retirement age will help free up resources that could be used to achieve true universal coverage in the United States ...  Obamacare subsidizes health insurance for everyone under 400 percent of the federal poverty level—$60,520 for a two-person household—lower-income seniors would be protected under any increase in the retirement age."

That sounds right to me, and Avik offers several more on-target rebuttals to those who oppose the concept, including the fact that the "Congressional Budget Office projects that this would save $148 billion between 2012 and 2021."

I suggest reading the whole thing, but I want to focus here on some of the comments folks left.

Two in particular stand out:

"[T]he Republicans did everything within their power to protect the status quo with regard to the 44 million working and yet uninsured Americans."

The fact is, the ObamaTax, even if/when fully implemented, will leave some "30 million non-elderly Americans" without health insurance. By design. So who are the obstructionists here?

This one did provide a nice chuckle:

"You appear to be supporting cost shifting from government to everyone’s pocketbook"

Self-awareness: how does it work?

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