Editorial, Op-Ed Discuss New Policy on Medicare Part B Premiums
Two newspapers recently published an editorial and an opinion piece on a 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. Summaries appear below.
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Chicago Tribune: The new policy represents a "monumental shift in thinking about Medicare, long overdue," a Tribune editorial states. Over 10 years, the policy will reduce Medicare costs by an estimated $20.8 billion, the editorial states, adding, "That's nowhere near enough to offset the long term Medicare funding shortfall," but "it is a refreshing dose of reality." According to the editorial, some "wealthy seniors may abandon that part of Medicare for private insurance rather than pay the higher premiums, leaving the program with sicker and poorer recipients," but most "won't budge because they know that Medicare is far and away the best deal going for seniors" (Chicago Tribune, 9/25).
- Dan Thomasson, Washington Times: CMS officials estimate that the new policy will prompt only about 30,000 higher-income Medicare beneficiaries to leave the program by 2010, but "their optimism seems based on no further premium raises in the following four years, hardly a certainty as the pressures" on entitlement programs increase, Thomasson, former editor of Scripps Howard, writes in a Times opinion piece. According to Thomasson, the policy will reduce Medicare costs by an estimated $7.7 billion over five years and $20 billion over 10 years, "only a small amount of what is needed to keep the gigantic program solvent." He concludes, "One thing seems apparent. The time is approaching when Medicare will clearly not be the great deal it once was" (Thomasson, Washington Times, 9/24).
