Another Warning for Medicare?

The American enterprise Institute (AEI) held a conference today discussing the future of Medicare. The speakers present were Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, Richard S. Foster, chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS), Robert B. Helms, resident scholar in health policy studies at AEI and Gail Wilensky, senior fellow at Project HOPE, which is an international health organization.

The panel discussed the importance of letting the Congress aware of the Medicare social security and urging them to act upon it. The panel also touched upon the disagreements of Democrats and Republicans upon the previously mentioned social security. They suggested a bipartisan solution to this problem, and that it will only be solved when both parties arrange a single conference discussing and planning the future of Medicare, by using more competitive elements.

Another important issue, which was brought up by Gail Wilensky, was the retirement age
of the population. As the average death age has increased, 65 is too early to retire and all benefits that the Medicare brings is more costly. Thus a new retirement age should be discussed in order to solve this problem.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid occupy a 42 per cent ($1.3 trillion) of the Federal budget, whereas 58 per cent ($1.6 trillion) is spent on other Federal issues