Making Medicare Buy-In Work

By GottaLaff

I would love to finally get a grasp of all these health care reform proposals. This is a good start:

Here is what we know so far:

- The new Medicare option would be available only to individuals, not to families.

- People 55 to 64 would receive the same benefits as people in the traditional Medicare program.

- Medicare premiums for people under 65 would differ from those paid by people 65 and older, and the two parts of the program would be financed separately.

I've heard praise and criticism of the buy-in, but mostly praise.

Here is a little more on what it would take to make this work, but please go read the details here.

Only the sickest Americans would be willing to pay for Medicare buy-in, transforming it into just another small high-risk pool for older people. [...]

In other words, in order to avoid a situation where the buy-in attracts a small number of very sick people between 2011 and 2014, policy makers will have to consider subsidizing the program (or some other way of lowering premiums like not charging administrative fees or freezing premiums from year.) [...] If they want to make this work, they’ll have to lower the cost of the program.

On MSNBC, as I type this, they're saying the buy-in could be cut or changed.

I really hope we can ultimately come up with a decent piece of legislation, one that we can call a genuine "accomplishment", one that will help people stay alive, despite being a giveaway to Big Insurance/Big Pharma.