USA Today Examines New Policy on Medicare Part B Premiums
USA Today on Wednesday examined a "controversial" new policy that will require higher-income Medicare beneficiaries in 2007 for the first time to pay a higher monthly premium for Part B than other beneficiaries, and other efforts by the federal government to "raise new revenue from the rich." Opponents, such as Maria Freese of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, maintain that the policy will prompt many healthier higher-income Medicare beneficiaries seek other options and leave sicker, lower-income beneficiaries, who cost more to treat, to carry the program. However, other health care experts, such as Tricia Neuman, a Kaiser Family Foundation vice president and director of its Medicare Policy Project, maintain that many healthier, higher-income Medicare beneficiaries likely will not leave the program because no private health plan compares financially. The policy marks the "newest area of government means testing" as part of an effort to address the long-term financial problems of Medicare and other entitlement programs and the federal budget deficit, USA Today reports. According to USA Today, although recent polls have indicated public support for such policies, many experts predict that "further efforts to increase taxes and premiums or reduce benefits for upper-income Americans will face political peril" (Wolf, USA Today, 9/21).
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