Medicare Age Eligibility Change

By Ed Crowe | | 0 comment | 31 August, 2021 | 0

Medicare Age Eligibility Change

Is Medicare for all a reality? Progressive Democratic and Independent party leaders are pushing for a Medicare Age eligibility change to 60 in the US. The political landscape drives change. As a result, this may be a step in that direction. More likely, it’s a compromise.

President Biden proposed lowering the age of Medicare eligibility to 60 during the presidential campaign. His goal is to broaden coverage and make health coverage affordable for older adults. Congress will consider the proposals to lower the age of Medicare. One analysis shows that lowering the age of Medicare eligibility to 60 could reduce costs for employer health plans by as much as 15 percent. In addition, another analysis shows that 60 to 64-year-olds who move from employer plans to Medicare could be covered more cheaply.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) both both seek to include a provision lowering the age to join Medicare to 60 or lower. Warren seeks to lower the age even further, to age 55.

“I’ll be fighting to reduce the Medicare age—the eligibility age—because it saves money and saves lives,” Warren said. Sanders agrees that lowering the age will be important. If the eligibility age changes to 60, supporters project up to 20 million Americans could join Medicare.

Medicare Age Eligibility Change: How Likely is This Change?

A senior Democratic aide, however, said it’s unlikely that Democrats include it in their reconciliation measure, a budget procedure that allows a simply majority to pass legislation. Party leaders unveiled $1 trillion in health-care provisions for the budget package. The package compete with the age change, includes additional new benefits for Medicare. As a result, an expansion of Obamacare is extended.

Unlike the expansion of the affordable care act, hospitals and insurers oppose lowering the Medicare eligibility age. Medicare payments to hospitals, physicians and other health care providers are generally lower than what private insurance pays.

Before a bill is passed, the same exact budget resolution must be adopted by the House and Senate. And Senate Republicans, with the help of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), succeeded in adding a couple of amendments to the budget resolution on hot-button political issues. Conservative measures could complicate the reconciliation process. As noted earlier, the House and Senate need to adopt the same budget resolution in order to set the stage for their $3.5 trillion bill. Read more.

Learn more about the implication of policies Medicare age eligibility change.

Click here for proposal details.

Additional Agent Resources

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Medicare Age Eligibility Change: Quoting hospital indemnity plans on our quote site

Our agent quote site allows you to quote the GTL (and others) along side of the Medicare Advantage plans. This makes it easy to get a rate and match the indemnity plan benefits with the inpatient copays of the MAPD plan. GTL also has an easy to use online enrollment site for agents. They can use it either at point of sale or over the phone. They also allow paper applications for old school agents like myself.