In a last-minute bid for undecided voters in the run-up to the midterm elections, Democrats are loudly claiming that a Republican Congress will be bad for seniors.
As President Joe Biden put it at a campaign rally last week, "They’re coming after your Social Security and Medicare, and they’re saying it out loud."
But if anyone poses a threat to Medicare's future, it's Democrats.
The entitlement is running out of money.
Republicans have proposed ways to make it sustainable for years to come.
Democrats are pretending that Medicare's looming fiscal crisis doesn't exist.
According to the latest report from Medicare's trustees, its Part A hospital-insurance trust fund will be insolvent starting in 2028. The same report projects that the program's "expenditures will increase in future years at a faster pace than either aggregate workers' earnings or the economy overall."
In other words, Medicare — an entitlement 63.8 million Americans depend on for health coverage — is headed toward bankruptcy.
Democrats haven't offered up much in the way of concrete ideas for staving off that fiscal catastrophe.
Thanks to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act earlier this year, they're planning to cap prices for a steadily increasing number of drugs covered by the program — starting with 10 covered by the Part D prescription drug benefit — in 2026.
That will drive pharmaceutical companies' revenues down and thus lead to less investment in research and development. Economists project that the price caps could result in more than 300 fewer new drug approvals over the next two decades.
It's safe to assume that tax hikes would be at the heart of any Democratic plan to shore up Medicare.
The alternative would be long waits if not outright denials of care for Medicare beneficiaries. As a report published earlier this year by the Republican Study Committee says, "Current law would require payments to providers be cut by 10%. Payment cuts will result in rationed care for current and future beneficiaries.
"The Medicare guarantee would no longer exist."
Republicans have better ideas than innovation-killing price controls and growth-killing tax increases. The most significant would index Medicare's eligibility age to the nation's life expectancy.
This is an eminently reasonable change that should have been implemented years ago.
Life expectancy has increased dramatically, from about 70 years when Medicare became law in 1965 to about 79 years today.
The average senior is claiming benefits for much longer than his or her forebears did a half-century ago. It's no wonder the program is running out of money.
Republicans have also proposed cracking down on waste and fraud throughout Medicare. There's likely a lot of savings that could be realized. Last year, improper payments in the program totaled more than $4 billion, according to the RSC report.
Another good idea is to make it legal for Medicare beneficiaries to make tax-free contributions to health savings accounts.
Giving seniors more control over how and where they spend their healthcare dollars would incentivize them to shop around for care and thereby put downward pressure on prices throughout the healthcare system.
This is a much wiser and less destructive way of reducing Medicare spending than, say, slashing payments to providers.
Next year, in fact, the Biden administration plans to reduce Medicare physician reimbursements by 4.5%. That kind of pay cut will make it more difficult for many providers to cover the cost of treating Medicare patients. Some will scale back the number of Medicare patients they're willing to accept and see as patients — and thereby reduce access to care.
The president, it seems, is the one coming after seniors' Medicare.
Medicare is teetering toward collapse.
Democrats would rather ignore the problem and engage in fearmongering about Republicans' policy intentions than do what's necessary to save the program.
Voters need to see through such tactics.
Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and the Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is "False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All," (Encounter Books 2020). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes. Read Sally Pipes' Reports — More Here.
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