Perspective detail: Making Medicare Work: Ensuring Coverage in an Age of Exploding Costs

Perspective 2: Make Medicare Affordable by Focusing on Those Who Need it the Most

Unless we revisit what Medicare promised, the program will drive up either our taxes or our national debt so much it will cripple the nation. Before the baby boomers retire, we need to pare down benefits to make them more affordable. Even more importantly, we need to change the system so that affluent retirees pay more of their own health care costs. In this way, we can maintain benefits for those who need them the most.


Therefore, we should:

  • Require that retirees who can afford it pay a larger portion of their health care costs.
  • Gradually raise the Medicare eligibility age a reasonable amount to account for the fact that people are living and working a lot longer than they used to.
  • As difficult as it is, we simply have to find a fair and acceptable way to set limits on “heroic” health care measures for senior citizens that is contributing so much to rising health care costs. We simply can’t afford for everyone, no matter how old they are, to have a liver or heart transplant.

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